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God Pie

A baked pie with sliced cod, lemon, butter, fish jelly, oysters, egg yolks, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and oyster work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 496 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

God 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 cod

  1. Wipe the cod dry and rub it with lemon juice.

  2. Let the cod sit for 1–2 hours.

  3. Cut the cod into slices and season with spices.

  4. Toss the cod slices in fresh butter in a skillet until firm.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pie dish with the pie crust and let it cool.

  2. Place the cooked fish in the crust, then add lemon peel, fish jelly, oysters, hard‑boiled yolks, and slices of butter.

  3. Cover with a top crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour or more, depending on size.

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. Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + fishtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod
Forms the flaky main body of the pie once cooked.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the fish stay tender as it cooks.
Lemon juice
Acidity brightens the fish and helps firm its surface when rubbed in.
Fish jelly
Gelatinous stock that moistens the filling and sets as it cools.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Enrich the filling with a creamy, dense texture.
Oysters
Add briny, savoury flavour and a soft texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Toss the cod in butter until firm. Cooking the fish only until it firms keeps it from drying out, since it will cook further in the oven under the crust.

“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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