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Squab Pot-pie

A savory pie with squab, salt pork, potatoes, dough balls, and spices baked in a short crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Squab Pot-pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a deep baking dish, combine the diced salt pork, squab pieces, and potato squares.

  3. Add the small dough balls on top.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt, white pepper, and a dash of mace or nutmeg.

  5. Pour in hot water to cover the ingredients.

Bake

  1. Cover with a short pie crust and bake for 45 minutes.

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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Pork + squabtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Pork + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,565 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Potato + macetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together288 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt pork
Renders fat during baking, adding richness and savory flavor to the broth and meat.
Squabs
Provide the main meat, whose connective tissue softens into tender pieces during long baking.
Potatoes
Absorb cooking liquid and thicken the filling as their starch softens.
Dough balls
Cook in the juices, becoming soft dumplings that soak up the savory broth.
Short pie crust
Seals the dish, trapping steam so the filling cooks through in its own liquid.

The step that matters

Covering with the pie crust. The crust must seal the dish well so steam stays in and the filling cooks through evenly. A loose crust lets liquid escape, which can leave the meat dry and the dough balls underdone.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, squab, potato, mace):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, squab, potato, mace. 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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