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Dessert

French Pie

A savory French pie filled with forcemeat, sweetbread, oysters, and assorted meats, seasoned with salt, mace, cloves, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 165 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

French 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 the crust

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

  2. Make a raised crust in a buttered tin and brush it with egg yolk.

  3. Cover the bottom with forcemeat.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the pie with sweetbread, oysters, chicken, turkey, or rabbit limbs, artichoke bottoms, asparagus tops, forcemeat balls, and mushrooms, arranging them evenly. Season lightly with coarse sea salt, mace, cloves, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven.

  3. Once done, pour in some good white sauce.

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. Artichoke + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

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

  2. Turkey + rabbittop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Chicken + turkeytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  4. Chicken + rabbittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Chicken + asparagustop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Forcemeat
Forms a savory base layer that cushions the filling and adds richness.
Sweetbread
Contributes a tender, delicate texture and rich flavor to the filling.
Chicken limbs
Provide meaty bulk and moisture that keeps the filling juicy during baking.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture to the filling.
White sauce
Adds creamy moisture and richness to the baked pie.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, oyster, chicken, turkey, rabbit, artichoke):

  1. Asparagusthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, oyster, chicken, turkey, rabbit, artichoke. 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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