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Roman Pie

A savory pie filled with rabbit, eggs, cheese, pasta, and vermicelli, seasoned with cayenne pepper and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Rabbit and cream work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 409 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Roman Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the rabbits and slice the meat thinly.

  2. Line a raised pie mold with pastry.

  3. Fill the mold with rabbit meat, hard-boiled eggs, grated parmesan, boiled macaroni, and small pieces of vermicelli.

  4. Season the mixture highly with cayenne pepper.

  5. Add 1 cup of cream and the gravy.

Bake

  1. Cover the pie and bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

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. Rabbit + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Parmesan cheese + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,566 recipes

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

  4. Egg + parmesan cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,368 recipes

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

  5. Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provide the main meat, which is cooked by boiling before slicing.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm, sliceable body and richness to the filling.
Grated parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savory flavor and browning as it bakes.
Boiled macaroni
Adds bulk and a soft, starchy texture to the filling.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, enriching the filling as it bakes.

“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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