Name: A Pie of Cold Roast Meat and Apples
Ingredients: 4 apples, quartered and cored; thick slices of cold fat bacon; cold roasted meat, sliced; 1 teaspoon pounded ginger; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 1 cup ale; pastry for covering the pie

Why it works: Ginger and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Pie of Cold Roast Meat and Apples

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

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble and bake

In a dish, layer the apple quarters, bacon slices, and cold roasted meat.
Season the layers with ginger, pepper, and salt.
Pour the ale over the top of the layered ingredients.
Cover the dish with pastry and bake until nicely browned.

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.

Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,424 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Apple + peppertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,026 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,777 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Meat + gingertop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together743 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples: Provide bulk and a tart, fruity flavour that balances the rich meat and bacon.
Cold fat bacon: Adds fat that melts into the layers, contributing moisture and savoury flavour.
Cold roasted meat: Supplies the main savoury filling and flavour of the pie.
Ale: Adds liquid that moistens the layers and contributes malty flavour.
Pastry: Encloses the filling and browns in the oven, forming a crisp top.

The step that matters

Cover the dish with pastry and bake until nicely browned. The pastry must be sealed so steam stays in and the filling cooks through, while the top browns through dry oven heat. Browning depends on surface dryness and oven temperature, so check colour rather than relying only on time.

Swap the apple

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

Limefits better
Lemonfits better
Mangofits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ginger, 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.

Apple Pudding256 recipes

Ginger Cookies213 recipes

Ginger Cake93 recipes

Soft Ginger Bread85 recipes

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A Pie of Cold Roast Meat and Apples