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Beef Steak Pie

A savory pie filled with beef steak, onions, carrots, potatoes, and broth, topped with a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Beef Steak Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large pot, brown the beef steak over medium heat.

  3. Add the onion, carrots, and potatoes; cook until softened.

  4. Stir in the beef broth, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper.

  5. Simmer for 30 minutes, then thicken with flour.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie dish and cover with the pie crust.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes until the crust is golden 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender and savory as it browns and simmers.
Potatoes
Add starch and body to the filling as they soften in the broth.
Flour
Thickens the simmering broth so the filling holds together under the crust.
Beef broth
Supplies the liquid base that cooks the vegetables and meat and carries the flavor.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form a golden top.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour after simmering. Flour needs heat and liquid to gelatinize and thicken the broth. Adding it to a cold or unsimmered liquid can leave lumps, and an underheated filling stays thin and runny under the crust.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, potato, sauce, pepper, 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.

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