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Baked Meat Pie

A pie made with stewed round steak, broth, and a dough crust baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baked Meat Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Cut the round steak into small pieces.

  2. Cover the pieces with cold water and stew for about 2 hours.

  3. Add salt and pepper 20 minutes before finishing.

  4. Thicken the broth and pour it over the meat in a round granite pan.

Make the crust and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, lard (or butter or cottaline), a little salt, and enough milk to form a dough.

  2. Flour the bottom of a round cake tin and pat the dough into it.

  3. Slide the dough onto the meat in the pan and slash the crust once or twice.

  4. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter 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

Round steak
Long gentle stewing breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and the broth rich.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough so the crust holds together when baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, lifting the crust so it becomes light rather than dense.
Lard or butter
Adds fat that shortens the dough, giving a tender, flaky texture and browning.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the dough binds together and browns richly in the oven.

The step that matters

Slide the dough onto the meat and slash the crust. Slashing lets steam escape from the crust so it bakes evenly instead of puffing unevenly or turning soggy. Keeping the oven hot sets the crust quickly and gives it good colour.

“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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