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Giblet Pie

A savory pie filled with boiled giblets, liver, and steak, topped with pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. Clean and blanch the giblets (except the liver).

  2. Put the giblets, wings, feet, head, and neck into boiling water.

  3. Remove the skin from the feet and beak.

Make the cooking liquid

  1. In a stewpan, melt ½ cup of butter with the sliced onion, bay leaf, a little salt, pepper, and sugar.

  2. Cook until the onion is brown.

  3. Add the giblets and cut the head in two.

  4. Stir and cook for about three minutes.

  5. Add nearly 1 quart of boiling water.

  6. Stew gently for 1.5 hours.

  7. Remove from heat and let cool.

Assemble the pie

  1. In a pie dish, place a piece of steak at the bottom.

  2. Layer the giblets and liver over the steak, then add another piece of steak on top.

  3. Pour in the cooking liquid from the giblets.

  4. Season and cover with 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. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

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

Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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

Giblets
Provide the main meat and flavor that the stewed filling is built around.
Steak
Adds savory meat flavor and body to the filling as it cooks gently.
Onion
Browning in butter builds sweet, savory depth in the cooking liquid.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavor and adds richness to the cooking liquid.
Bay leaf
Adds a subtle herbal aroma to the stewing liquid.
Pastry
Seals the filling in and forms the crust that covers the pie.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 1.5 hours. Gentle simmering breaks down connective tissue slowly, making the meat tender. A hard boil toughens the meat and makes the liquid cloudy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, sugar. 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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