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Lark Pie

A savory pie made by stuffing larks with a mixture of entrails, bacon, mushrooms, herbs, and spices, then baking with a suet crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lark 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. Mix the chopped entrails with grated bacon, shredded mushrooms, sage, parsley, sweet herbs, pepper, salt, mace, and nutmeg in a bowl. Form the mixture into a ball and divide the ball into 12 parts.

  2. Place one part inside each lark.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare a baking pan with a crust and spread it with pounded beef suet and bacon. Sprinkle seasoning over the suet and bacon.

  2. Arrange the larks in the pan, adding pounded bacon in any hollow spaces. Dust more seasoning over the larks.

  3. Add thin slices of butter. Cover with thin slices of bacon. Place the top crust on. Brush the top crust with egg.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until done.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the top crust. Take out the bacon. Skim off the fat.

  2. Pour in the rich cullis. Ensure the larks are evenly placed in the cullis.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Sage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Larks
Serve as the main meat, cooking gently inside the pie within their stuffing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour, keeping the larks and filling moist during baking.
Beef suet
Forms the fatty base layer that enriches the crust and keeps the birds moist.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture over the larks as they bake.
Egg
Glazes the top crust, promoting an even golden browning.

The step that matters

Bake until done, then skim the fat. Larks are very small and lean, so overbaking dries them out, while underbaking leaves them unsafe. Skimming excess fat after baking keeps the cullis clean and the pie from tasting greasy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, sage, parsley, pepper, nutmeg, beef, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, sage, parsley, pepper, nutmeg, beef, 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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