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Beef Steak Pie

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Steak Pie

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.

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

  2. In a bowl, rub the butter into the flour until well mixed.

  3. Add cold water gradually to form a thick paste.

  4. Knead the paste on a board and roll it out flat with a rolling pin.

  5. Invert the dish onto the rolled-out paste and cut out the cover.

  6. Roll out the trimmings and cut them into strips.

  7. Wet the edges of the dish and place the strips around the edges as a foundation for the cover.

  8. Layer the slices of beef in the dish, seasoning with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  9. Add a little gravy or cold water and some flour for thickening.

  10. Place the cover on the dish, pressing the edges tightly to seal.

  11. If any paste remains, cut or stamp it into decorative shapes and place them on the cover.

  12. Once baked, glaze the crust with a mixture of beaten egg white and water or sugar and water.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

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