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A Giblet Pie

A savory pie made with giblets, livers, water, spices, sweet herbs, onion, and rump steak, baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

A Giblet 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.

Make the broth

  1. Combine giblets (except livers), water, peppercorns, mace, sweet herbs, and onion in a saucepan.

  2. Cover and simmer gently until tender.

Assemble the pie

  1. Prepare a pie crust and place it in a pie dish.

  2. Season the rump steak with salt and pepper, and place it at the bottom of the dish.

  3. Add the giblets and livers to the dish.

  4. Strain the cooking liquid over the giblets and livers.

  5. Season the liquid with salt and pepper.

  6. Pour the liquid into the pie.

  7. Cover with the pie lid.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Mace + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Rump steak
Adds meaty flavour and body to the pie as it cooks in the dish.
Giblets
Provide the main meat flavour and body for the broth that fills the pie.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the simmered cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until tender. Vigorous boiling toughens meat proteins and can cloud the broth, so a gentle simmer keeps the giblets tender and the liquid clear.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, onion, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, onion, pepper. 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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