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Rump-steak Pie

A savory pie made with rump steak, eschalots, pepper, salt, mushroom ketchup, stock, and optional oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rump-steak Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the rump-steak into pieces half the size of your hand, trim off skin and sinews, and beat the steak with a chopper.

  2. Chop the eschalots very finely and mix them with pepper and salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Strew some of the mixture at the bottom of a dish, add a layer of steak, then more mixture, repeating until the dish is full.

  2. If using oysters, blanch them, remove the gills, and layer them alternately with the steak.

  3. Add the mushroom ketchup and stock over the steak.

  4. Cover with paste and bake for 2 hours.

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 + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Ketchup + oystertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Mushroom + ketchuptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Mushroom + oystertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,299 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + oystertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump-steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, slow baking under the pastry.
Eschalots
Add savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften and mellow through the bake.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury depth and umami to the meat and its juices.
Rich stock
Supplies moisture that gently cooks the steak and forms the sauce around it.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury richness to the filling.

The step that matters

Beating the steak. Beating breaks up the meat's connective fibres, which helps the steak turn tender rather than tough during the long bake.

“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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