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Devizes Pie

A savory pie filled with calf head, brains, lamb, pickled tongue, bacon, eggs, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Devizes Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Assemble

  1. Layer thin slices of cold calf's head, brains, cold lamb, pickled tongue, bacon, and hard-boiled egg rings in a pie dish.

  2. Season the layers with pepper, coarse sea salt, cayenne, and spice.

  3. Fill the dish with rich gravy.

  4. Cover with a paste made from flour and water.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for one hour.

  2. Let cool, then turn out onto a dish.

  3. Garnish with parsley and sliced pickled eggs.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Lamb + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

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

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Forms the meaty, gelatinous base of the filling, setting into a sliceable texture as it cools.
Lamb
Adds savoury meat flavour and bulk to the layered filling.
Pickled tongue
Contributes tangy, salty, concentrated meat flavour through the pie.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that bastes the filling and deepens its flavour.
Hard-boiled eggs
Provide firm, mild egg rings that give structure and contrast to the layers.
Rich gravy
Moistens the layers and binds them together as the pie cooks and cools.
Flour
Forms the paste crust that encloses the filling while it bakes.

The step that matters

Cover with a paste made from flour and water. The crust must seal the dish completely so the filling stays moist and the gravy does not evaporate during the slow bake.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, egg, pepper, flour):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Turmericfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, egg, pepper, flour. 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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