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Beefsteak Pie

A pie with beefsteak pieces baked in a crust with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beefsteak 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.

Prepare the steak

  1. Beat the steaks lightly and season with pepper and salt.

  2. Place bits of butter over the surface of the steaks.

  3. Dredge with 1 teaspoon of flour, then roll the steaks and cut into 2‑inch pieces.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a tin basin with rich pie paste around the sides and bottom.

  2. Add the steak pieces to the basin, nearly fill with water, and add a piece of butter cut small.

  3. Dredge with 1 teaspoon of flour, add a little pepper and salt.

  4. Lay skewers across the basin.

  5. Roll out a top crust to ½ inch thickness, cut a slit in the center.

  6. Pinch the edges of the top crust together with floured fingers.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 hour at 400°F (200°C).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Steaks
Provide the meat that becomes tender and flavorful as it cooks in the pie.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, melting into the steak and gravy as the pie bakes.
Flour
Dusted on the steak to thicken the juices into a slightly thick gravy.
Pie paste (in the method)
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Pinch the edges of the top crust together. A tight seal keeps juices from leaking out during baking and helps the filling stay moist and gravy-rich.

“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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