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Carp Pie

A baked pie made with carp stuffed with a forcemeat of eel, herbs, oysters, anchovy, egg yolks, and bread crumbs, finished with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Carp 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

  1. Clean, draw, and wipe the carp.

  2. Make a forcemeat by mixing the minced eel, herbs, lemon peel, pepper, nutmeg, salt, chopped oysters, anchovy, egg yolks, and bread crumbs. Add ¼ cup of cream to the mixture and combine well.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the carp with the forcemeat and sew it up.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp
Forms the main body of the pie and provides the flesh that is cooked through.
Eggs
Hard-boiled yolks bind the forcemeat and add richness and body to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the forcemeat a soft, cohesive texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the forcemeat tender during baking.
Oysters
Contribute briny, savory flavor and moisture to the forcemeat.

The step that matters

Stuffing and sewing the carp. The forcemeat must fill the cavity without being packed so tightly that it cannot heat through. Proteins in the fish and eggs set as they cook, so even heat is needed for the filling and fish to cook evenly.

“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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