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Meat Pie

A savory pie with meat, onions, potatoes, and a thickened broth topped with biscuit dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Meat Pie

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. Wash the meat and cut into small pieces.

  2. Add chopped onion and boiling water to the meat.

  3. Pare and slice potatoes into ¾ inch pieces and add to the meat.

  4. Heat the mixture to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Thicken and assemble

  1. Mix flour and seasonings with cold water to form a paste, then add to the stock to thicken.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish and place an inverted cup or pie funnel in the center.

  3. Cover with rich biscuit dough or pastry.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Onion + potatotop 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).

  4. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 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

Meat
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the filling as it simmers.
Potatoes
Add bulk and starch that help thicken and soften the filling as it cooks.
Flour
Its starch swells in hot liquid, thickening the stock into a gravy-like filling.
Onion
Adds aroma and a mild sweetness that deepens the flavor of the stock.

The step that matters

Thickening the stock with the flour paste. Mixing flour with cold water first makes a smooth paste that disperses evenly. Stirring it into hot stock keeps lumps from forming, and the starch thickens as the liquid heats.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, potato, flour, 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.

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