Skip to main content
Main

Giblet Pie

A preserved giblet pie made by soaking giblets in saltwater, boiling them in vinegar, and storing them sealed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Giblet Pie

Why it works: Horseradish and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,646 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Giblet Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Soak and dry

  1. Soak the giblets in saltwater for 3-4 days.

  2. Remove the giblets, wipe them dry, and place them in a stone jar.

Pickle

  1. Boil enough vinegar to cover the giblets with spices and pepper for 10 minutes.

  2. Pour the boiling vinegar over the giblets.

  3. Cover the giblets with vine leaves and place a plate on top.

  4. Set the jar near a fire overnight.

  5. Drain the vinegar, reheat it, and pour it hot over the giblets.

  6. Cover with fresh leaves and let it cool completely.

Seal and store

  1. Seal tightly with bladder to exclude air and store for 1-2 months before use.

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. Horseradish + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Vinegar + turkeytop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Giblets
Main ingredient that softens during the long soak and absorbs the pickling flavours.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the giblets during storage.

The step that matters

Seal tightly with bladder to exclude air. Keeping air out of the jar limits spoilage by oxygen-loving microbes during the one to two months of storage, so the seal must be airtight.

Swap the horseradish

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, turkey, 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.

More giblet pie recipes

Oyster 4Goose 3 See all 69 →

You might also like

Turkey SoupTurkey Soup71 recipesTurkey StuffingTurkey Stuffing26 recipesTurkey DressingTurkey Dressing24 recipesHorseradish SauceHorseradish Sauce17 recipes