Name: Meat Pie for Lunch
Ingredients: 1 thick rump steak, larded and rubbed with shallot; small pieces of game (without bones); ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt; some pieces of bacon; chopped mushrooms; rich gravy; pie crust (for bottom and sides)

Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Meat Pie for Lunch

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.

Prepare the filling

Place the larded rump steak in the bottom of a saucepan.
Add the small pieces of game on top of the steak.
Season with black pepper and salt, then add pieces of bacon.
Stew the mixture well, then add chopped mushrooms and rich gravy.

Assemble and bake

Transfer the mixture into a pie crust, ensuring a thick ornamental crust around the sides and bottom.
Leave the top crust loose for additional gravy.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crust is light 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.

Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak: Provides rich, meaty body and chew to the filling as it stews.
Game: Adds deep, gamey flavour and substance to the filling.
Bacon: Adds savoury fat that flavours the filling and moistens the meat.
Mushrooms: Add earthy savour and moisture that soften during stewing.
Rich gravy: Keeps the filling moist and carries flavour through the pie.
Pie crust: Forms the structure that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Stewing the filling well. Meat must be cooked through and tender before it goes into the crust, because the pie bakes only until the crust browns and will not fully tenderise tough meat.

Swap the shallot

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

Capsicumfits better
Spinachfits better
Tomatofits about as well
Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mushroom. 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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Meat Pie for Lunch