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Baking

An Herb Pie

A baked pie filled with boiled and chopped mixed herbs, bound in a flour, egg, cream, and milk batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

An Herb 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 herbs

  1. Wash and boil the parsley, spinach, lettuces, mustard greens, cress, borage, and white beet leaves briefly.

  2. Drain and press out excess water, then chop the herbs finely.

  3. Mix the chopped herbs in a dish and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

Make the batter and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, beaten eggs, cream, and milk to make a batter.

  2. Pour the batter over the herbs, cover with a crust, and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Spinach + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Lettuce + boragetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Spinach + boragetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Spinach + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together503 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set into a firm, sliceable custard around the herbs.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the batter and gives the pie body and structure.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and moisture, producing a smoother, softer set.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid to loosen the batter and help it bake evenly.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, green flavour and bulk to the herb filling.

The step that matters

Press out excess water from the herbs. Leftover water from boiled greens dilutes the batter and can make the custard soggy or loose instead of set.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, lettuce, mustard, borage, flour, egg, cream):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, lettuce, mustard, borage, flour, egg, cream. 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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