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Squirrel Pot-pie, Etc

A pot pie made with bacon, squirrel, spices, vinegar, and dumplings, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,987 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Squirrel Pot-pie, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. In an earthen crock, place the bacon and quartered squirrels.

  2. Add the bay leaf, bruised peppercorns, juniper berries, garlic (or onion), and wine vinegar.

  3. Cover the meat with water and let it marinate for 48 hours.

Simmer and serve

  1. Cover the crock and place it in a saucepan of warm water; simmer for 2 hours.

  2. Add dumplings; if needed, add more hot water to cover.

  3. Simmer for an additional 30 minutes, then add the juice of the orange 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. Clove + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Wine + orangetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Clove + winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-isoeugenol (clove, spicy).

  4. Clove + meattop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Meat + orangetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together449 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

Squirrels
Provide the meat that becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor to the meat and cooking liquid.
Wine vinegar
Acidity that helps tenderize the meat during the long marinade.
Garlic
Adds aromatic pungency to the marinade and cooking liquid.
Dumplings
Absorb the cooking liquid and become soft, tender, and filling.

The step that matters

Keeping the meat fully covered during the simmer. Simmering in a covered crock inside warm water keeps the liquid from evaporating and the meat cooking gently. If the meat is exposed, it dries and toughens, so the dumplings also need enough hot water to stay submerged and cook evenly.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Quincefits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, wine, meat. 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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