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A Christmas Pie

A pie filled with goose, fowl, smoked tongue, and game meat, seasoned with nutmeg, mace, pepper, and salt, wrapped in pastry.

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 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meats

  1. Bone the goose and fowl.

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

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

  4. Season the fowl and goose with this mixture.

Build the crust

  1. Roll out the pastry to about 1 inch thick.

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

  3. Brush the pastry with beaten egg white.

  4. Place the side piece on the bottom piece, pinching the edges together and sealing with egg white.

  5. Ensure the bottom piece extends slightly up the sides.

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 with 1 lb of butter.

  4. Place the top crust on, ensuring it is slightly below the edge of the walls.

  5. Seal well and decorate with pastry cutouts.

  6. Glaze the pie with beaten egg yolk and bind with double-folded white paper.

  7. Bake for 4 hours at 300°F (150°C).

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
Forms the main body of the pie, providing rich meat and fat that keeps the filling moist.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, moistening the meat as it cooks under the crust.
Egg white
Brushed on pastry to seal the edges and help the crust hold together.
Egg yolk
Glazed over the crust, promoting browning and a glossy finish in the oven.
Smoked tongue
Contributes a smoky, savoury flavour and meaty texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Seal the crust well. Sealing the side and top pastry with egg white keeps the juices in and the filling from leaking during the long bake. Because the pie cooks for hours, any gap lets moisture escape and the meat dries out.

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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