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English Pork Pie

A baked pie of pork and apples, sweetened with cider and sugar, topped with a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

English Pork 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 pudding dish, layer the pork strips and season with pepper, salt, and mace.

  3. Add a layer of sliced apples, sprinkle with sugar, and dot with butter.

  4. Repeat the layers, finishing with a layer of apples on top.

  5. Pour the sweet cider over the layers.

  6. Cover with a thick pie crust, ornament the edges, and make a slit in the middle.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 1.5 hours, covering with paper if the crust browns too quickly.

  2. Once browned, brush the crust with butter, close the oven door briefly, and wash with egg white.

  3. 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. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Pork + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Apple + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together865 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

Lean fresh pork
Forms the savory meat filling that cooks through in the pudding dish.
Apples
Add sweetness and acidity that balance the rich pork and soften as they cook.
Sweet cider
Adds moisture and fruity flavor, helping the layers steam gently as they bake.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and browns the crust for a glossy finish.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and bakes into a sealed, golden top layer.

The step that matters

Covering the crust during baking. The thick crust browns faster than the filling heats through. Covering it with paper slows browning so the pork cooks fully without the crust burning.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, apple, sugar, pepper, cider, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, apple, sugar, pepper, cider, butter. 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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