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Beefsteak Pie

A savory pie with beef, flour crust, and gravy, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Beefsteak Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the paste

  1. In a bowl, mix flour and butter to form a thick paste.

  2. Add cold water gradually and knead quickly.

  3. Roll out the paste flat on a board with a rolling pin.

  4. Invert a dish onto the rolled paste and cut out a piece for the cover.

  5. Roll out the remaining paste and cut into strips.

Assemble the pie

  1. Wet the edges of the dish and place the strips around the edges.

  2. Season the beef slices with salt and pepper.

  3. Roll each slice into a small bundle or lay them flat in the dish.

  4. Add gravy or cold water and flour for thickening to the dish.

  5. Cover the dish with the paste, pressing down the edges to seal tightly.

  6. Use any leftover paste to create decorative shapes and place them on top of the cover.

Bake and glaze

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

  2. If desired, glaze the crust with a mixture of beaten egg white and water or sugar and water while hot.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the paste structure that holds the pie crust together while baking.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for a tender, flaky texture in the paste.
Beef
Provides the main filling and savory flavor of the pie.
Egg white
Gives the crust a glossy, browned finish when used as a glaze.

“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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