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Sparerib Pot Pie

A pot pie made with spareribs, potatoes, butter, and baking powder dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sparerib Pot Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spareribs

  1. In a kettle, cover the spareribs with hot water and stew until tender.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then remove from the kettle.

Assemble and cook

  1. Layer spareribs in the bottom of the kettle, followed by potatoes, bits of butter, and squares of dough.

  2. Repeat layers until the kettle is two‑thirds full, finishing with squares of dough on top.

  3. Add the cooking liquid from the spareribs and more hot water if needed.

  4. Cover and boil for 30–45 minutes, ensuring it doesn't boil dry.

Finish

  1. For the crust, roll out baking powder dough thinly, cut into squares, let rise, and use for the pie.

  2. If there's not enough gravy after serving, mix hot water with flour and butter, season, and serve.

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. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Spareribs
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender from slow stewing in water.
Baking powder dough
Forms the crust squares that rise and cook through in the liquid.
Potatoes
Add starch and bulk, absorbing flavour from the cooking liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the layers.

The step that matters

Ensuring the kettle does not boil dry. Boiling dry scorches the bottom layers and stops the dough from cooking through. Keeping enough liquid in the kettle lets the dough steam and the potatoes soften evenly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Carrotfits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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