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Giblet Pie

A pie of squabs stuffed with chicken or pigeon livers, herbs, and a buttery sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Giblet Pie

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Giblet Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the squabs

  1. Pick and draw the squabs as you would a large fowl for roasting.

  2. Wash the squabs and place them in a saucepan with a close cover.

  3. Cover with boiling water and boil slowly until tender.

  4. Add salt and an onion clove to the squabs while boiling.

  5. Boil the livers in the water left from cooking the squabs.

  6. Season with celery, sweet herbs, and mushroom or walnut catsup.

  7. Remove the squabs, drain, and dry them.

Stuff and assemble

  1. Stuff each squab with 1 teaspoon of butter, a little pepper, salt, minced parsley, and thyme.

  2. Insert a hard-boiled egg into the cavity of each squab.

  3. Place the squabs in a large, round, earthen baking dish.

  4. Strain the cooking liquid over the squabs.

  5. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 cup of milk or cream.

  6. Sift in 2 tablespoons of unbrowned cracker crumbs, 1 tablespoon of minced parsley, thyme, and a little salt.

Bake

  1. Add a few slips of pastry on top.

  2. Cover with a rich crust and bake.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Squabs
Provide the main meat, which is cooked until tender before baking.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm, sliceable richness and body inside the pie.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness to the liquid filling around the birds.
Cracker crumbs
Thicken the sauce slightly and give the filling body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing and the filling.
Livers of chicken or pigeon
Contribute a deep, savoury flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Strain the cooking liquid over the squabs. Liquid that is too thin or too thick changes the sauce. Cracker crumbs and milk thicken as the pie bakes, so the balance of liquid matters for a moist, set filling.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, celery, mushroom, squab, onion, butter, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, celery, mushroom, squab, onion, butter, 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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