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Snipe Pie

A pie made with roasted snipe, beef gravy, bacon, ham, tongue, and Bologna sausage, topped with light pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,898 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Snipe Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare 6 snipe for roasting and set aside 2 for gravy.

  2. Make a rich beef gravy using the gravy meat.

  3. Simmer the 2 snipe in the gravy.

  4. Pound the meat into a paste and blend it back into the gravy.

  5. Rub a pie dish with a shallot.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the bottom with collops of tender beef rolled with bacon, dusting each layer with spiced pepper.

  2. Place the 6 snipe on top of the beef.

  3. Add slices of bacon, ham, tongue, or Bologna sausage between each bird.

  4. Pour the puree over the snipe, reserving some for later.

  5. Cover with light pastry.

  6. Bake 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. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  2. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Meat + shallottop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together484 recipes

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

  4. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + hamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together798 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Snipe
Form the main meat filling and provide the central flavour of the pie.
Gravy meat
Breaks down into the rich beef gravy that moistens the whole pie.
Tender beef
Rolled into collops to make the top layer tender and easy to eat.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour as it bastes the meat while baking.
Light pastry
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form the crust.

The step that matters

Pound the meat into a paste and blend it back into the gravy. Pounding breaks the muscle fibres so the meat thickens the gravy into a smooth puree. If it is left coarse, the sauce stays thin and grainy.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham, pepper. 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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