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Meat Pies

A baked pie made with cornmeal or hominy, onion, tomato, and meat, topped with more cornmeal and fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Meat Pies

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.

Make the filling

  1. Melt the fat in a pan and add the sliced onion.

  2. If using raw meat, add it and stir until it turns brown.

  3. Add the tomato, salt, and pepper, and mix well.

  4. If using cooked meat, add it after the onion is browned and heat through.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a baking dish and layer in the cereal.

  2. Add the meat mixture on top, then cover with more cereal and dot with fat.

  3. Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°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. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Cornmeal, rice, or hominy
Forms the bulk of the pie, giving it body and a soft, starchy texture when baked.
Tomato
Adds moisture and acidity that flavour the meat filling and keep it from drying out.
Meat
Provides protein and savoury richness to the filling; browning raw meat adds depth of flavour.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma when softened and browned in the fat.
Fat
Carries flavour in the pan and, dotted on top, helps the crust brown and richen.

The step that matters

Browning raw meat. If raw meat is not stirred until it is well browned, it can stew in its own juices and stay grey and bland. Browning builds savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction, which needs the surface to be dry and hot enough.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, tomato, pepper, meat. 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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