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Parsley Pie

A savory pie made with fowl or veal bones, parsley, milk, broth, cream, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

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 ↓

Parsley Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place the fowl or veal bones in a dish and season.

Make the filling

  1. Scald the picked parsley in milk and add it to the meat with the broth or gravy.

  2. Bake until cooked through.

Finish and serve

  1. In a separate pot, scald the cream with the butter and flour, then mix it with the gravy in the pie.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Parsley + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Fowl or veal bones
Provides meaty flavor and body to the broth and gravy as it cooks.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, green aroma and distinctive herbal flavor to the filling.
Milk
Softens the parsley and adds a mild richness to the filling.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream and butter mixture so it becomes a smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for rich flavor and helps the flour blend into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Scalding the cream with butter and flour. Flour must be fully mixed into the butter and warm cream and heated enough to thicken. If it is undercooked or clumped, the sauce turns lumpy and tastes raw, so stir steadily and heat gently until smooth.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, parsley, milk, cream, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, milk, cream, butter, flour, 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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