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Squab Pie

A baked pie with boiled squabs in a buttery gravy, topped with biscuit dough crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Squab Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the squabs

  1. Dress the squabs carefully and parboil until tender.

  2. Remove the birds and drain off the liquid, then add the milk.

Make the gravy

  1. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  2. Thicken the mixture with flour and let it come to a boil.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the squabs in a baking dish and pour the gravy over them.

  2. Cover with a thinly rolled biscuit dough crust.

  3. Brush the crust with the beaten eggs.

  4. Make a few lines in the crust with a fork and cut a small hole in the center.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together889 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together841 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Squabs
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through parboiling before baking.
Milk
Forms the base of the gravy, adding moisture and a mild, creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the gravy, carrying flavor across the dish.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a gravy when heated, giving it body.
Eggs
Brushed on the crust, where they help it set and brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with flour and let it come to a boil. Flour must be cooked at a boil to swell its starch and thicken the gravy; without boiling, the gravy stays thin and tastes raw.

“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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