Name: Giblet Pie
Ingredients: giblets from goose or duck; 1 onion, part; a few sweet herbs; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; salt to taste; 1 pound rump steak, cut into pieces; puff pastry; butter; flour

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

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

Clean the giblets thoroughly and stew them in a little water with part of the onion, sweet herbs, and cayenne pepper.
Once cooled, cut the gizzard into three or four pieces and the liver in two. Season with salt.

Assemble and bake

Prepare puff pastry and line the sides of a pie dish.
Place the cut rump steak at the bottom of the dish and fill with the giblets.
Cover with more pastry and bake at 400°F (200°C) for two hours.

Make the gravy and serve

Instead of water, use some of the liquid from stewing the giblets, thickened with butter and flour, and add it hot after baking.

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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together32,460 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 from goose or duck: Form the main filling, providing the rich, savoury flavour of the pie.
Rump steak: Adds meaty body and savoury flavour to the filling at the bottom of the dish.
Puff pastry: Forms the flaky crust that encloses the filling and rises during baking.
Butter: Enriches the gravy and, with flour, thickens the stewing liquid through its fat.
Flour: Thickens the stewing liquid into a gravy when cooked with butter.