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Beef Steak Fie

A baked beef steak pie with crust, seasoned steak, and optional gravy or mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Beef Steak Fie

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

  1. Cut the steak into moderately-sized pieces and trim off all skin or sinews.

  2. Season the steak with pepper, coarse sea salt, and minced shallot or onion.

  3. Mix in 1-2 tablespoons of mushroom ketchup or flap mushroom with the steak.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the seasoned steak in a dish and cover with pie crust, leaving an inch below.

  2. Add 1 teacup of gravy or water before baking.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about two hours.

Serve

  1. Pour good gravy over the pie after baking.

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. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + ketchuptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together476 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Mushroom + ketchuptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Provides the main meat filling, which becomes tender with long, slow baking.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and forms a crisp, browned top and case while baking.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds a deep, savoury umami flavour to the meat and gravy.
Gravy or water
Supplies moisture so the filling cooks gently and stays juicy in the dish.

The step that matters

Baking the steak for about two hours. Steak has connective tissue that needs long, moist heat to soften. Too short a bake leaves the meat tough, while the added liquid keeps it from drying out.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mushroom, ketchup. 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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