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English Giblet Pie

A pie filled with stewed giblets in a butter‑flour gravy, topped with a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 giblets

  1. Wash and clean the giblets.

  2. Place the giblets in a stew pan.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Add 2 tablespoons of butter rolled in flour.

  5. Cover the giblets with water.

  6. Stew until very tender.

Assemble the pie

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

  2. Add the giblets to the pie dish.

  3. If the gravy is too thin, add more butter rolled in flour.

  4. Let the mixture boil once.

  5. Pour in the gravy.

  6. Cover with the top crust.

  7. Leave a square opening in the center.

  8. Decorate with leaves of the crust.

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 provide the savory, meaty flavor of the pie.
Butter
Adds richness and, rolled in flour, helps thicken the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when combined with butter and cooking liquid.
Pie crust
Forms the structure that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Stewing the giblets until very tender. Giblets are tough connective tissue and must cook long enough to soften fully. Stopping early leaves chewy meat, and the gravy will not have the body it needs.

“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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