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Giblet Pie

A savory pie filled with stewed goose giblets, livers, and a thick steak, topped with crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Giblet Pie

Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Giblet Pie

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 the filling

  1. Stew the goose giblets with the onion, mace, pepper, salt, and sage leaves until tender.

  2. Grate the livers and set aside.

Assemble the pie

  1. Place a thick steak at the bottom of a pie dish.

  2. Fill the dish with the giblet mixture, dusting with flour and seasoning as you go.

  3. Before baking, strain the gravy and pour it into the pie.

  4. Cover the pie with a crust and bake at 400°F (200°C) for one hour.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Sage + livertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

  4. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Goose giblets
Provide the main meat and savory flavor of the filling.
Livers from the giblets
Add richness and a creamy, deeper flavor to the filling.
Thick steak
Forms a meaty base layer beneath the filling.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it sets rather than running out of the pie.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven as a top layer.

The step that matters

Straining and pouring the gravy before baking. Flour-thickened gravy that is too thin will run out when the pie is cut, while gravy that is too thick can set heavily. Straining removes bits that could cloud the texture, so the gravy pours evenly around the meat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, sage, liver, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, sage, liver, flour. 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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