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Cornish Pasties

A pastry filled with beef, potatoes, onions, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cornish Pasties

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the beef, potatoes, salt, pepper, onion, and parsley.

  3. Make a dough with the flour and water as needed.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut it into 6 or 8 squares or rounds.

  2. Fill the center of each piece with the meat and potato mixture.

  3. Wet the edges, fold over to form a triangle, and seal thoroughly.

  4. Bake for 30 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the dough that encloses the filling and holds its shape while baking.
Beef
Provides the main savory filling and richness as it cooks inside the pasty.
Potatoes
Adds moisture and body to the filling, cooking gently in the enclosed pastry.
Onion
Adds aroma and savory sweetness that deepens during baking.

The step that matters

Seal the edges thoroughly. A tight seal keeps juices and steam inside the pasty, so the filling cooks through and the dough does not split or leak in the oven.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, flour, beef, potato, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, beef, potato, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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