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Dessert

Cold Raised Pies

A cold pie made with fresh eels, parsley, mushrooms, Béchamel sauce, and aspic jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cold Raised Pies

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble the pie

  1. Arrange the eel pieces in the pie crust in neat layers.

  2. Season each layer with parsley, mushrooms, salt, pepper, and a spoonful of Béchamel sauce.

  3. Cover the pie with more paste.

  4. Pinch the edges.

  5. Decorate the top.

  6. Brush the top with beaten egg.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake for about 1.5 hours.

  2. Remove from the oven.

  3. Let cool.

  4. Carefully remove the top.

  5. Decorate with aspic jelly.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,480 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 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

Eels
Form the main filling, providing the substance and body of the pie.
Short paste
Forms the sturdy crust that encloses the filling and holds its shape while baking.
Béchamel sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess, keeping the filling from drying out as it bakes.
Egg
Beaten egg brushed on top promotes browning and gives the crust a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Let cool before removing the top. As a cold-raised pie cools, the filling and its juices set and firm up. Lifting the top too early can break the structure and make the filling spill or slump.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, pepper, sauce, egg):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, sauce, egg. 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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