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Lamb Pie, a Savory One

A lamb pie with puff pastry crust, seasoned lamb, sweetbreads, oysters, forcemeat balls, egg yolks, asparagus, and a gravy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Lamb Pie, a Savory One

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pie

  1. Season the lamb pieces with salt, pepper, mace, cloves, and nutmeg.

  2. Make a puff pastry crust.

  3. Place the seasoned meat inside the crust.

  4. Add lamb stones, sweetbreads, oysters, forcemeat balls, hard-boiled egg yolks, and asparagus tops.

  5. Grease the pie with butter.

  6. Cover the pie with the pastry lid.

Make the sauce

  1. In the meantime, mix the gravy, oyster liquor, red wine, and grated nutmeg in a pot.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg yolks.

  3. Cook until it boils.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1.5 hours.

  2. Pour the mixture into the pie.

  3. Cover again.

  4. 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Forms the main body of the filling and gives the pie its meaty flavour.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they heat and add richness and colour.
Puff pastry crust
Forms a flaky, crisp shell that browns in the oven and holds the filling.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the gravy-based sauce.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Stirring in the beaten egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can scramble and curdle if the mixture is too hot or boils too hard. Keep the heat gentle and stir constantly while it thickens.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, pepper, clove, nutmeg, meat, oyster, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, clove, nutmeg, meat, oyster, egg. 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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