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Pilchard and Leek Pie

A pie of leeks and pilchards baked with cream and a plain crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,399 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pilchard and Leek 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.

Prepare

  1. Clean and skin the white part of the leeks.

  2. Scald the leeks in a mixture of milk and water.

Assemble

  1. Layer the leeks in a dish, adding layers of soaked salted pilchards in between.

  2. Cover the dish with a plain pie crust.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

  2. Remove the pie from the oven and lift the side crust with a knife to empty out the liquid.

  3. Pour in 4 pints of scalded cream.

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. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  2. Leek + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together158 recipes

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

  3. Leek + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Leeks
Form the soft bulk of the filling and add a mild, sweet onion flavour.
Salted pilchards
Add a salty, savoury fish flavour that seasons the whole pie.
Milk
Scalds the leeks gently, softening them and adding mild richness to the filling.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, set body to the filling.
Plain pie crust
Encloses the filling and bakes to a golden, crisp top.

The step that matters

Draining the liquid before adding the cream. Lifting the crust to empty the liquid removes water that baked out of the leeks and fish. Without this, the added cream would be diluted and the filling would set loose and watery instead of rich and firm.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream. 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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