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Beefsteak Pie

A pie filled with seasoned steak pieces, butter, flour, and water, topped with crust and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the steak

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

  2. Place butter pieces over the steaks and dredge with flour.

  3. Roll the steaks up and cut into 2‑inch pieces.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a tin basin with pie crust, then add the steak pieces.

  2. Nearly fill the basin with water and add the small butter pieces.

  3. Dredge with flour and season with additional pepper and salt.

  4. Lay skewers across the basin, then roll out the top crust to ½‑inch thick.

  5. Cut a slit in the center of the top crust and pinch the edges together.

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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  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).

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 during the long bake.
Flour
Dredging thickens the juices into a light gravy around the meat.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and keeps the meat moist.
Pie crust
Forms the enclosing shell that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Nearly fill the basin with water. Too little liquid leaves the steak dry and the flour cannot form a gravy, while the crust may scorch before the meat softens.

“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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