Skip to main content
Main

Cornish Pasties

A pastry filled with steak, potatoes, and onion, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cornish Pasties

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Peel and boil the onion until tender, then chop it finely.

  2. Chop the meat and potatoes into small pieces.

Assemble the pasties

  1. Roll the short pastry out to about ½ inch thick and cut it into rounds.

  2. Place a little of the meat, onion, and potato on each round, then sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  3. Wet the edges of the pastry, press them together, and create a frill on top.

  4. Insert a knife beneath the frill to allow steam to escape.

Bake

  1. Bake on a greased baking sheet at 400°F (200°C) for about 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Buttock steak
Provides the meat filling, which becomes tender during baking.
Parboiled potatoes
Add bulk and moisture to the filling as they cook through in the oven.
Short paste
Forms the sturdy case that holds the filling and bakes to a golden crust.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Insert a knife beneath the frill. A vent lets steam escape during baking so pressure does not build inside the sealed pastry and burst the seam or make the filling soggy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes