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Parsley Pie

A savory pie made with veal or fowl bones, parsley, milk, broth, cream, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Parsley 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

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Season the fowl or veal bones and place them in a dish.

  3. Scald the picked parsley in milk, season it, and add it to the fowl or meat.

  4. Pour in the broth or weak gravy.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake until cooked through.

  2. In a separate pot, scald the cream with the butter and flour, mixing well.

  3. Pour the cream mixture into the baked dish and stir to combine with the gravy.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Parsley + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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

Fowl or veal bones
Provide the main meat and savory flavor that the dish is built around.
Picked parsley
Supplies the herbal aroma and green flavor that defines the pie.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the parsley and the finished filling.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream mixture so it binds with the gravy instead of staying thin.
Broth or weak gravy
Adds moisture and meaty savoriness to the dish.

The step that matters

Scalding the cream with butter and flour. Flour thickens liquid only when it is heated and stirred well; if lumps form or the mixture is not mixed thoroughly, the sauce will be uneven and may not bind with the gravy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, milk, cream, walnut, butter, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, milk, cream, walnut, butter, flour. 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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