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Savoury Pasties

A pastry filled with a mixture of cooked meat, ham, celery, and seasonings, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Savoury Pasties

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Coarsely mince equal quantities of cooked meat and ham.

  2. Season the mixture with celery, coarse sea salt, and pepper.

  3. Mix enough thick white or brown sauce to moisten the mince.

Assemble the pasties

  1. Roll out the paste to about ⅛ inch thick and cut into rounds the size of a claret glass.

  2. Spread half the rounds with the mince, then scatter parsley and finely-chopped onion over the meat.

  3. Cover with the remaining rounds of paste, wet the edges, and pinch them together.

Bake

  1. Brush the tops with beaten egg or milk and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked meat
Provides the savory bulk and main flavour of the filling.
Ham
Adds salty, savory flavour to the filling.
Thick white or brown sauce
Moistens the minced filling so it stays juicy inside the pastry.
Paste
Forms the pastry casing that holds the filling and bakes crisp.
Beaten egg or milk
Brushed on top to promote golden browning during baking.

The step that matters

Pinching the edges closed. The edges must be wet and firmly sealed, otherwise the filling can leak out and the moist sauce-bound mince can escape during baking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, ham, celery, pepper, sauce, parsley, egg):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham, celery, pepper, sauce, parsley, 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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