Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Pork Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Make a crust as you would for a chicken pie.
Remove the rind and chine-bone from the pork and chop it finely.
Season the chopped pork with pepper, coarse sea salt, and powdered sage.
Assemble and bake
Fill the pie with the seasoned pork mixture.
Cover with the top crust and seal the edges well.
Nib the top crust with the egg yolk.
Bake for 2 hours, covering with paper to prevent burning.
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.
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Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,417 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,388 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,527 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,121 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pork
- Provides the meat filling and its fat, which keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
- Egg yolk
- Brushed on the top crust, it promotes browning and a glossy finish.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the pork and draws out flavour from the meat.
The step that matters
Bake for 2 hours, covering with paper to prevent burning.. The long bake lets the pork cook through and the filling set, while the paper cover shields the crust from scorching before the interior is done.
Swap the sage
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pork, pepper, egg):
- Thymefits better
- Marjoramfits about as well
- Garlicfits about as well
- Sagethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, 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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