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Dessert

Raised French Pie

A raised pastry shell filled with a fricassee of chicken, rabbit, or other entrée.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Raised French Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the crust

  1. Make a paste with the flour and knead it well into a ball.

  2. Press your thumb into the center and shape it into an oval or round form, about 5 inches high.

  3. Place it on a sheet of paper and fill it with coarse flour or bran.

  4. Roll out a covering of the same thickness as the sides and attach it with egg yolk.

  5. Cut the edges evenly and pinch them with your fingers.

  6. Brush the top with egg yolk and decorate as desired.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until golden brown.

  2. Once baked, cut out the top, remove the filling, and clean it.

  3. Fill the pie with a fricassee of chicken, rabbit, or your choice of entrée.

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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + chickentop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Egg + chickentop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,991 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the dough structure that holds the pie's shape while baking.
Egg yolk
Acts as a glue to attach the lid and adds colour and richness to the glazed top.

The step that matters

Sealing the lid to the sides. If the covering is not attached firmly with egg yolk and the edges are not pinched well, the lid can separate or the filling can leak during the long slow bake.

“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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