Skip to main content
Main

Carp Pie

A savory pie made with carp, eel flesh, anchovy, grated bread, eggs, spices, and claret.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Prepare a puff pastry and lay it in a dish.

  3. Add bits of butter, pepper, and salt to the bottom of the pastry.

  4. Scale and gut the carp, then soak in vinegar, water, and salt.

  5. Wash the carp, dry them, and prepare the filling by mixing eel flesh, chopped anchovy, grated bread, 2 buttered eggs, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the belly of the carp with the mixture and make forcemeat balls with the same filling.

  2. Cut off the tail and fins of the carp and place them on the crust with slices of fat bacon, mace, and bits of butter.

  3. Close the pie and pour in ½ pint of claret before baking.

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 and gives the dish its flesh and flavour.
Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set as it cooks.
Grated bread
Soaks up moisture and gives the filling a softer, binding texture.
Eel flesh
Adds richness and a savoury, fatty depth to the filling.
Anchovy
Contributes salty, savoury depth to the filling.
Claret
Adds moisture and wine flavour that infuses the pie as it bakes.

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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes