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A Christmas Pie

A savory pie filled with goose, fowl, smoked tongue, and seasonings, baked in a buttered crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 6,557 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the meat

  1. Bone the goose and fowl.

  2. Parboil the smoked tongue, then peel it and cut off the root.

  3. Mix nutmeg, mace, pepper, and salt.

  4. Season the fowl with the mixture.

  5. Season the goose with the mixture.

Build the crust

  1. Roll out the pie crust to about 1 inch thick.

  2. Cut out two oval pieces for the top and bottom, and a long piece for the sides.

  3. Brush the crust with beaten egg white.

  4. Place the side piece on the bottom piece.

  5. Pinch the edges together and seal the edges with egg white.

  6. Ensure the bottom piece is large enough to fold slightly over the lower edge of the side piece.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the pie with the goose, fowl, tongue, and any game meat, ensuring no bones are included.

  2. Add bits of ham or forcemeat balls if desired.

  3. Cover the filling with butter.

  4. Place the top crust on, slightly below the edge of the wall, and seal well.

  5. Decorate with cut-out paste shapes.

  6. Glaze the pie with beaten egg yolk.

  7. Bind with a double fold of white paper.

  8. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 4 hours.

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

  1. Nutmeg + macetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Mace + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Butter + eggtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together118,511 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together24,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Goose
Provides the main meat and rich flavour that fills the pie.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture to the filling as it melts during baking.
Egg whites
Act as a glue to seal the pastry edges together.
Egg yolk
Gives the crust a glossy, golden browned finish.

The step that matters

Sealing the pie edges. Well-sealed pastry edges keep the juices and fat inside during the long bake. A gap lets liquid escape and can leave the filling dry or the crust soggy.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Allspiceabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, pepper, butter, egg. 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).

“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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