Name: Beefsteak Pie
Ingredients: 1 lb beef steak; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon pepper; 1 sheep's kidney; 2 teaspoons flour; ½ cup water

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 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

Cut the beef into slices about 2 inches long and 1 inch wide, and cut the fat into small pieces.
Mix the flour, pepper, and salt together.
Dip each slice of beef into the mixture and roll it up with a piece of fat inside.
Lay the rolled beef slices lightly in a pie dish.
Cut the kidney free from skin and fat into small pieces, and place them in the dish alternately with the beef.
Pour in the water.

Bake and serve

Cover with rough puff pastry.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 1 hour.

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.

Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,677 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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

Beef steak: Forms the main meat filling, becoming tender during the long bake.
Sheep's kidney: Adds rich, deep meaty flavour to the filling.
Flour: Coats the beef and helps thicken the juices in the dish.

“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.