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Squab Pie

A pie made with mutton neck, apples, onions, suet crust, seasoned with salt, pepper, sugar, and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 260 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Squab Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the neck of mutton into neat chops and season them with salt and pepper.

  2. Peel, core, and slice the apples.

  3. Peel and slice the onions.

Assemble and bake

  1. Lay the chops in a pie dish.

  2. Add the apples and onions on top of the chops.

  3. Sprinkle some sugar over the filling.

  4. Cover with the suet crust.

  5. Bake for 45 minutes.

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. Ketchup + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mutton + mushroomtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together685 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton
Provides the meat and rich flavour that forms the body of the pie.
Apples
Add moisture and a bright sweetness that balances the savoury meat.
Onions
Contribute savoury depth and moisture as they soften during baking.
Suet crust
Forms a sturdy, tender pastry lid that seals in the juices while baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the savoury meat and sharp apples.

The step that matters

Cover with the suet crust. The crust must seal the dish fully so steam and juices stay inside, keeping the meat moist and the filling from drying out during baking.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, mushroom, ketchup, pepper, sugar):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Red currantfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, mushroom, ketchup, pepper, sugar. 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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