Skip to main content
Main

Meat Pie

A savory pie filled with boiled meat and gravy, topped with a crust.

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

Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Meat 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.

Make the filling

  1. In a pot, bring enough water to cover the meat to a boil.

  2. Add the meat, pepper, salt, onion, and butter.

  3. Thicken the mixture with flour until it resembles cream.

Make the crust

  1. For the crust, mix 1 pint of flour, lard, salt, and baking powder.

  2. Add water to moisten the crust mixture.

  3. Roll the crust very thin and line the bottom and sides of a pan.

  4. Prick the crust lightly and bake at 400°F (200°C) until firm but not brown.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill the crust with the meat and gravy.

  2. Cover with a top crust, prick it, and bake until lightly brown.

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 + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cold cooked meat
Forms the bulk of the filling and provides the main savory flavor.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a creamy gravy that holds the filling together.
Lard
Adds fat to the crust, giving it a short, tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the crust so it rises lightly and bakes up tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the filling, improving flavor and mouthfeel.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and depth to the filling as it cooks.

The step that matters

Bake the crust until firm but not brown. Baking the bottom crust before filling sets its structure so it does not turn soggy from the moist meat and gravy. Over-browning at this stage makes it bitter and brittle, so it should only be set and then given a second bake after filling.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, butter, flour. 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.

More meat pie recipes

Mince Filling 11Mince 10Cold 7French 7Crust 5Pastry 5 See all 92 →

You might also like

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipesMeat CakesMeat Cakes35 recipes