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Beef Pot Pie

A savory pie with beef, potatoes, and a soft dough crust, baked with broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Beef Pot Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Cook the meat until well done.

  2. Slice the potatoes into 1-inch thick pieces.

  3. In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, lard, and salt; rub together.

  4. Beat the egg until light and add it to the flour mixture.

  5. Add enough milk to form a soft dough.

  6. Roll out the dough and cut it into pieces.

Assemble and cook

  1. In a boiler, layer the meat and potatoes, alternating with pieces of dough until all ingredients are used.

  2. Add enough broth to prevent scorching.

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 + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Walnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the pie together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so it rises and turns light.
Lard
Adds fat that makes the dough tender and flaky.
Egg
Adds structure and richness to the dough and helps bind it.
Potatoes
Adds starch and bulk that soften and thicken the filling.
Meat
Provides the main savory filling, already cooked through.

The step that matters

Add enough broth to prevent scorching. Without enough liquid in the boiler, the flour-based dough and starchy potatoes can stick and burn on the base before the pie is cooked through. Adding broth keeps the bottom moist and heat spread evenly.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, walnut, egg, milk, meat, potato, onion):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, walnut, egg, milk, meat, potato, onion. 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.

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