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Stump Pie Meat

A savory pie of beef and marrow with eggs, wine, and sweet additions like citron and dates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stump Pie Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the marrow, but do not mince it.

  2. Mix the beef and marrow together.

  3. Season the mixture with pepper, coarse sea salt, nutmeg, ginger, thyme, minced parsley, garlic, and onion.

  4. Combine with the yolks of 8 eggs and a little white wine.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a pie dish with the crust and fill it halfway with the meat mixture.

  2. Layer pieces of marrow dipped in egg over the meat.

  3. Add hard yolks, citron, and dates.

  4. Fill the pie nearly full with the remaining meat mixture.

  5. Cover with the same sweet ingredients as before.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until done.

  2. Cut it up.

  3. Serve with a sweet wine sauce.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Nutmeg + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the bulk of the savoury filling and gives it a meaty body.
Marrow
Adds richness and fat, keeping the filling moist and tender as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling together and help it set into a sliceable texture.
Dates
Add sweetness and a soft, chewy texture to the filling.
Citron
Adds a candied, aromatic sweetness and a hint of bitterness.

The step that matters

Combining the egg yolks into the meat. Yolks must be evenly mixed so they bind the filling; uneven mixing leaves loose pockets that won't set firmly when baked and sliced.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, nutmeg, thyme, parsley, garlic, onion):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, nutmeg, thyme, parsley, garlic, onion. 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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