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Yorkshire Pork-pie

A savory pork pie with puff pastry, onions, eggs, and sago, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Yorkshire Pork-pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Butter a pudding dish and line it with puff pastry.

Fill the pie

  1. Layer the chopped pork, minced onion, and chopped hard-boiled eggs in the dish.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper, coarse sea salt, and powdered sago.

  3. Dust with flour and dot with small pieces of butter.

  4. Dredge the top with flour and dot with more butter.

Bake and glaze

  1. Cover with puff pastry, cut a slit in the center, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes per pound of meat.

  2. When it starts to brown, brush the crust with egg white for a glossy finish.

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. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Lean pork
Forms the savoury bulk of the filling and releases juices that flavour the pie.
Puff pastry
Its layers of fat and dough puff into flaky, crisp sheets as they bake.
Powdered sago
Absorbs juices from the meat as it cooks, thickening the filling so it holds together.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling and helps the crust brown.
Egg white
Brushed on the crust, it sets into a glossy, golden sheen.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it cooks with the pork.

The step that matters

Bake until the pork is fully cooked. The pork sits under a sealed pastry lid, so the filling cooks slowly from the outside in. Baking for the full time at the set temperature lets the meat cook through, while the pastry browns. Pulling the pie early can leave the centre undercooked.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, egg, pepper, flour, 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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