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Carp Pie

A pastry-wrapped carp filled with eel, anchovy, bread, eggs, and spices, baked with claret.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Carp 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 the pastry and fish

  1. Prepare a puff pastry and line a pie dish with it.

  2. Dot the bottom with bits of butter and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Scale and gut the carp.

  4. Soak the carp in vinegar, water, and salt. Rinse the carp and dry the carp.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. Prepare the filling by mixing eel flesh, chopped anchovy, grated bread, buttered eggs, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

  2. Fill the carp's belly with the mixture. Form forcemeat balls with the same filling.

  3. Trim the carp's tail and fins. Place the carp on the pastry.

  4. Top with slices of fat bacon, mace, and bits of butter. Pour in ½ pint of claret before sealing the pie.

Bake

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

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp
Forms the main body of the pie, providing the flaky, delicate fish flesh.
Eggs
Bind the filling together and help it set as it cooks.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and gives the forcemeat a soft, tender texture.
Puff pastry
Bakes into a crisp, layered, golden crust that encloses the fish.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the pastry and top brown.
Eel flesh
Adds richness and a dense, savoury body to the filling.

The step that matters

Sealing the pie with the claret. Liquid poured in before sealing can make the pastry soggy and affect how the filling cooks, so the pie should be closed promptly and baked without delay to keep the crust crisp and the fish moist.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, vinegar, anchovy, bread, egg, nutmeg. 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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