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English Giblet Pie

A savory pie filled with stewed giblets in a buttery gravy, topped with pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

English Giblet 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. Wash and clean the giblets.

  2. Season the giblets with pepper, coarse sea salt, and a little butter rolled in flour.

  3. Cover the giblets with water and stew until very tender.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line the sides of a pie dish with pastry.

  2. Place the giblets in the pie dish.

  3. Add more butter rolled in flour to the gravy if it is not thick enough.

  4. Let the gravy boil once.

  5. Pour the gravy over the giblets.

  6. Cover the pie with a top crust.

  7. Leave a square opening in the center of the crust.

  8. Decorate the opening with pastry leaves.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the crust is done.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Giblets
Form the main filling and become tender in the stewed gravy.
Butter
Rolled in flour, it thickens the gravy and adds richness.
Flour
Combined with butter, it thickens the gravy so it coats the giblets.

The step that matters

Stewing the giblets until very tender. Giblets are tough connective tissue and need long, gentle simmering to soften. Stopping early leaves the filling chewy, and the gravy only thickens properly once the meat has released its juices.

“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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