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Dessert

A Pie of Cold Roast Meat and Apples

A pie made with cold roasted meat, bacon, apples, ginger, pepper, salt, and ale, topped with pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Pie of Cold Roast Meat and Apples

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble and bake

  1. In a dish, layer the apple quarters, bacon slices, and roasted meat, then season the layers with ginger, pepper, and salt.

  2. Pour the ale over the top.

  3. Cover the dish with pastry and bake until nicely browned.

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. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  2. Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

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

  3. Apple + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,026 recipes

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

  4. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

  5. Meat + gingertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together743 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide moisture and tart flavor that balances the rich meat and fat.
Cold fat bacon
Adds fat that bastes the meat and apples, contributing richness and savory flavor as it renders.
Cold roasted meat
Forms the main savory body of the pie, flavored by the seasonings and juices.
Ale
Adds liquid that steams and moistens the layers and contributes malty flavor.
Pastry
Encloses the filling, trapping steam and browning in the oven for a crisp top.

The step that matters

Covering the dish with pastry and baking until nicely browned. The pastry must seal the dish so steam from the ale and fats stays inside and moistens the filling, while the exposed pastry browns through dry heat. Too little sealing lets the filling dry out; too little baking leaves the crust pale and doughy.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, ginger, pepper):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ginger, pepper. 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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