Name: Giblet Pie
Ingredients: 1 set goose giblets; Salt and pepper to taste; 1 lb beef steak; Short or flaky pastry; 1 onion; 1 clove

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,451 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Giblet Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Scald the feet and remove the outer skin.
Wash the head, chop off the beak, cut the neck into short lengths, and chop the pinions in half.
Cut the gizzard into small pieces.
Put all giblets into a pan with the onion and clove, cover with water, and simmer gently for 1 hour.
Season well and let them cool.
Prepare the beef steak as for a pie and arrange it in a pie dish with the giblets.
Half fill the dish with the gravy, cover with pastry, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour.
Serve hot with the rest of the gravy slightly thickened and well seasoned.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together16,901 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

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

Garlicbetter flavor fit
Thymebetter flavor fit
Celerybetter flavor fit
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, beef, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).