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English Pork or Raised Pie

A savory pie made with pork pieces encased in a lard-based crust, glazed with egg and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

English Pork or Raised Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the pastry

  1. Melt the lard in a little water until hot.

  2. Mix the hot lard with flour and a little salt to form a smooth paste.

  3. Divide the paste into balls and shape each into a hollow pie with walls 2 to 4 inches high.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill each pie with the pork pieces and season well.

  2. Fit a lid on top, glaze with beaten egg, and bake until light brown in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + porktop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pork + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,387 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lard
Makes the hot-water pastry rich and tender, and keeps it short and flaky when baked.
Flour
Forms the structure of the paste that holds the pie walls and lid together.
Pork
Provides the savoury filling, with fat adding moisture and richness as it cooks.
Egg
Glazes the lid, promoting even browning and a glossy golden finish.

The step that matters

Shape the hollow pies while the paste is still warm. Hot-water pastry stiffens as it cools and cracks easily, so the walls should be shaped while warm and pliable to keep them intact.

“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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