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Giblet Pie

A pie made from boiled goose giblets, onions, and seasonings, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Giblet Pie

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

Prepare the giblets

  1. Scald the giblets, pick and singe them.

  2. Remove the outer skin from the feet.

  3. Cut pinions in half.

  4. Cut neck into thirds.

  5. Cut gizzard into quarters.

  6. Cut liver and heart into halves.

  7. Wash the giblets.

Make the filling

  1. Place the giblets in a saucepan.

  2. Cover with water.

  3. Add onions, salt, and pepper.

  4. Simmer until the gizzards are tender.

  5. Remove the gizzards and place them in a pie dish.

  6. Season with more pepper and salt.

  7. Strain the cooking liquid.

  8. Add half a pint and port wine.

Top and seal

  1. When cool, cover the edge of the dish with puff pastry.

  2. Seal the pastry with more pastry.

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.

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

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

  2. Onion + port winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + port winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,804 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Goose giblets
Provide the main meat; gizzards soften into tender pieces during slow simmering.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the simmering liquid that becomes the filling.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the strained cooking liquid.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp crust as layered fat and dough puff during baking.

The step that matters

Simmer the gizzards until tender. Gizzards are dense muscle full of connective tissue. Slow simmering breaks that tissue down, so stopping early leaves them tough and chewy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, port wine. 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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