Skip to main content
Main

Snipe Pie

A savory pie made with snipes, beef forcemeat, and a wine-based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Snipe Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the snipes

  1. Parboil the snipes in stock and white wine, seasoned with grated onion, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Make a forcemeat by mixing beef, fat pork, butter, and soaked rolls.

  2. Season the forcemeat with onion, pepper, allspice, cloves, mushrooms, and gherkins.

  3. Thin the forcemeat with some broth from parboiling the snipes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a dish with the forcemeat.

  2. Place the snipes inside with some soup and a small piece of butter.

  3. Cover with more forcemeat.

  4. Bake for 1.5 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Combine soup, white wine, water, and butter rolled in flour for the sauce.

  2. Stir until smooth and bring to a boil.

  3. Add sliced pickled gherkins or lemon to the sauce 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.

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. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  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

Beef
Forms the bulk of the forcemeat, giving it a firm, sliceable body when baked.
Rolls
Soaked in bouillon, they add moisture and bind the forcemeat so it holds together.
Fat pork
Adds fat that keeps the lean beef moist and tender during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the forcemeat and sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the parboiling liquid and the sauce.

The step that matters

Thin the forcemeat with broth before layering. Beef and bread mixtures stiffen as they sit, and adding broth keeps the forcemeat loose enough to spread evenly around the snipes. Without enough liquid it can bake dry and dense.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, pepper, nutmeg, beef, pork, butter, allspice):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, pepper, nutmeg, beef, pork, butter, allspice. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipes