Name: Giblet Pie
Ingredients: goose or duck giblets; ½ cup water; 1 onion, chopped; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; a bunch of sweet herbs; beef steak, veal, mutton, or lamb (optional); pastry crust; 1 cup cream; sliced potatoes (optional)

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Giblet Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Clean the giblets thoroughly.
Stew the giblets with water, onion, black pepper, and sweet herbs until nearly done.
Let the mixture cool.
If there aren't enough giblets to fill the pie dish, add a piece of beef steak, veal, mutton, or lamb.

Bake and serve

Pour the stew liquid over the giblet mixture and cover with a pastry crust.
Bake until the crust is golden brown.
Once done, add cream on top.
Serve with sliced potatoes if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Goose or duck giblets: Form the main meat filling, giving the pie its savoury, rich flavour.
Pastry crust: Encloses the filling and browns in the oven, sealing in moisture while adding texture.
1 cup cream: Added after baking to enrich the finished pie with fat and a smooth, rich mouthfeel.

“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.