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Sea Pie

Sea Pie is a beef stew topped with a suet crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sea Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the steak into thin slices about 2 inches square.

  2. Place the steak in a shallow stewpan.

  3. Season the steak with salt and pepper.

  4. Barely cover the steak with boiling water.

  5. Cover the stewpan with a lid.

  6. Simmer gently.

Add vegetables and crust

  1. Slice the carrot thinly and chop the onion into small pieces, then add both to the meat.

  2. Make the suet crust as directed.

  3. Roll the suet crust into a round slightly smaller than the top of the stewpan.

  4. After simmering for 1 hour, place the crust on top of the meat.

  5. Replace the lid.

  6. Continue cooking for another 1½ hours.

Serve

  1. Once done, cut the crust into 4 pieces.

  2. Carefully remove the crust pieces to a plate.

  3. Arrange the meat and vegetables on a hot dish.

  4. Place the crust on top.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 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 main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Suet crust
Steams on top of the stew, forming a soft, dumpling-like crust that absorbs the cooking juices.
Onion
Releases sweetness and aroma into the broth as it cooks.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the stew as it softens during cooking.

The step that matters

Simmering gently under a lid. Boiling vigorously toughens meat proteins and can break up the meat, while gentle simmering lets connective tissue slowly soften. Keeping the lid on traps steam so the liquid does not evaporate too quickly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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