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Roman Pie

A baked pie filled with rabbit meat, macaroni, cheese, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roman Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the rabbit until cooked, then remove all the meat and pound it finely.

  2. Cook the macaroni until tender and chop the onion finely.

  3. In a bowl, mix the pounded rabbit meat, grated cheese, cooked macaroni, and chopped onion.

  4. Season the mixture with pepper, salt, and allspice.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a mould with good paste.

  2. Fill the mould with the meat mixture.

  3. Bake for 1 hour.

  4. Turn out the pie.

  5. Serve it cold.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Onion + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cheese + oniontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,849 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

Rabbit
Provides the main meat, which sets firm and holds the filling together as the pie cools.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury richness and fat, helping the filling taste rounded and moist.
Macaroni
Adds bulk and soft body to the filling, absorbing juices as it cooks.
Small onion
Contributes savoury aroma and a mild sweetness as it softens in the filling.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, cheese, onion, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, cheese, onion, 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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