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Spare Rib Pot-pie

A pot pie made with spare ribs, potatoes, butter, and baking powder dough, simmered in a kettle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spare Rib Pot-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ribs

  1. Cut the spare ribs into strips three to four inches wide.

  2. Place the ribs in a kettle and cover with hot water.

  3. Stew until tender.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper, then remove from the kettle.

Layer and cook

  1. Layer spare ribs in the bottom of the kettle, followed by a layer of quartered potatoes and bits of butter.

  2. Add small squares of rolled baking powder dough, season again, and repeat layers until the kettle is two-thirds full.

  3. Pour in the cooking liquid from the ribs and add hot water if needed.

  4. Cover the kettle.

  5. Boil for 30 to 45 minutes, adding hot water to prevent it from boiling dry.

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 + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Spare ribs
Provide the meat that becomes tender through slow stewing and gives the pot pie its savory base.
Baking powder dough
Forms soft dumplings that rise with leavening gas and absorb the cooking broth.
Peeled potatoes
Add starch that thickens the cooking liquid and gives the dish a hearty body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and softens the dough and potatoes.

The step that matters

Boil for 30 to 45 minutes, adding hot water to prevent it from boiling dry.. If the liquid boils away, the ribs, potatoes and dough can scorch on the bottom of the kettle while the top stays underdone. Keeping enough liquid ensures even cooking and gentle steaming of the dumplings.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Carrotfits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter. 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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