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Dessert

Goose Pie

A savory pie made with goose, turkey, fowl, ham, tongue, and spices, baked with a raised crust and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Goose Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove the bones from the goose, turkey, and fowl, cutting each down the back.

  2. Season the bones with pepper, coarse sea salt, mace, cloves, and nutmeg.

Assemble the pie

  1. Layer the goose in a dish with the breast skin side down, followed by the turkey, ham, tongue, and fowl.

  2. Cover with bits of ham or bacon.

  3. Shape a raised crust around the meat, making the sides 1.5 inches high.

  4. Place the top crust on and make a hole in the center.

  5. Brush the outside with beaten egg whites and wrap with buttered paper.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 3.5 hours.

  2. After baking, remove the paper and pour in 1.5 pounds of melted butter through the hole.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Goose
Forms the richest layer of meat and gives the pie its main body and flavour.
Turkey
Adds a second layer of meat that fills out the pie and blends flavour with the goose.
Fowl
Contributes another layer of meat, adding bulk and savoury depth to the filling.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour throughout the layers of the pie.
Butter
Melted and poured in after baking, it adds richness and moisture to the cooked meat.
Egg whites
Brushed on the outside to help the crust take on a glossy, golden colour in the oven.

The step that matters

Pour in the melted butter after baking. As the cooked meat cools it shrinks and leaves gaps and loose juices. Pouring melted butter through the central hole lets it fill those spaces, adding richness and moisture that the baked meat has lost.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, ham, pepper, clove, nutmeg, butter, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, ham, pepper, clove, nutmeg, butter, 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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