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Roman Pie

A baked pie of rabbit, macaroni, cheese, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Roman Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the rabbit joints in 2 quarts of water with onion, celery, carrot, and herbs until tender.

  2. Remove the rabbit from the pot, discard the bones, and slice the meat thinly.

  3. In a bowl, mix the milk, cheese, chopped onion, salt, pepper, and egg yolk.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a dish with boiled macaroni.

  2. Fill it with rabbit slices.

  3. Pour the cheese sauce over the top.

  4. Cover with a thin layer of puff pastry.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. If possible, turn it out and serve with brown or tomato 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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long simmering in water.
Egg yolk
Helps the cheese mixture set into a binding custard when baked.
Cheese
Adds richness and savoury flavour to the milk-based sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cheese sauce, adding moisture and creaminess.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, browned top layer that seals in the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the cheese sauce with the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens when gently heated, but if the custard is baked too hot or too long it can curdle or turn grainy. A moderate oven and a firm, set centre keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, celery, carrot, cheese, milk, pepper, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, celery, carrot, cheese, milk, pepper, egg. 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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