Skip to main content
Main

Giblet Pie

A savory pie filled with boiled giblets and steak, topped with a light crust and served with a port wine gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Giblet Pie

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Giblet Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the giblets

  1. Clean the giblets by washing them in warm water several times.

  2. Remove the gall from the liver.

  3. Cut the liver and heart into two pieces each.

  4. Soak the head in hot water.

  5. Chop off the beak.

  6. Skin the feet and gizzard.

  7. Cut the feet and pinions into two pieces each.

  8. Cut the neck and gizzard into four pieces each.

  9. Place all giblets in a saucepan with cold water.

  10. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  11. Drain and discard the water.

Cook the giblets

  1. Add fresh water, salt, pepper, parsley, thyme, and onions to the giblets.

  2. Simmer gently until cooked.

  3. Let the giblets cool in a bowl to preserve their flavor.

  4. Stew the steak until nearly tender in a separate saucepan.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the steak to the pie.

  2. Layer the steak at the bottom of the pie dish.

  3. Add the cooled giblets on top of the steak.

  4. Strain enough liquid to nearly cover the meat in the pie.

  5. Line the edge of the pie with a light crust.

  6. Cover the pie with the crust.

  7. Brush the crust with egg yolk.

  8. Decorate the crust with pastry leaves.

  9. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Thicken the giblet cooking liquid with flour and butter or flour mixed with water.

  2. Brown the thickened mixture.

  3. Add port wine to the mixture.

  4. Pour the gravy into the pie through an incision just before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Giblets
Provide the main meat and rich flavor for the filling and the cooking liquid.
Steak
Adds hearty, tender meat that becomes succulent as it stews in the pie.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the crust to give it a golden, glossy browning when baked.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy with body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the thickened gravy, smoothing its texture and flavor.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken and brown the gravy before adding the port. Flour must be cooked with the liquid so its starch swells and thickens it smoothly without lumps. Adding the port afterward keeps its alcohol and fruity flavors from cooking off as much, so the gravy tastes richer and stays balanced.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, parsley, thyme, egg, flour, butter, port wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, thyme, egg, flour, butter, port wine. 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.

More giblet pie recipes

Oyster 4Goose 3 See all 69 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes