Why it works: Flour and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Beef Steak and Kidney Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Beat the steak well to tenderize it.
Cut the steak into strips about 1 inch wide and 3 to 4 inches long.
Mix the flour, salt, and pepper on a plate. Dip each piece of meat into the mixture and roll a small piece of kidney inside each strip.
Place the rolls of meat in a pie dish without packing them too tightly.
Pour in the cold water and add the Liebig extract.
Cover and bake
Wet the edges of the pie dish and cover with strips of pastry.
Put on the lid and decorate with fancy leaves cut from the pastry trimmings. Seal the edges of the pie with the back of a knife.
Brush the lid with beaten egg, avoiding the edges of the crust.
Bake for about 1 hour.
Serve
Fill the pie with hot gravy and serve hot, garnished with parsley.
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.
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Best steak
- Provides the main meaty body of the filling, becoming tender as it cooks slowly under the crust.
- Ox kidney
- Adds a rich, deep flavor and firm texture to the filling.
- Flour
- Dusted on the meat, it helps thicken the cooking liquid into a gravy.
- Flaky pastry
- Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
The step that matters
Bake until the meat is tender. Beef and kidney need long, gentle cooking to soften their connective tissue. Stopping early leaves the meat tough and chewy, so the pie should bake fully before serving.
“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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