Why it works: Pork and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,208 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
Excellent Pork Pies
Ingredients
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
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Raise a pie crust into a round or oval form.
Cut small bits of pork and sweet bone meat.
Beat the meat with a rolling pin and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Assemble and bake
Layer the pork in the pie crust, keeping fat and lean separate, up to the top.
Cover with the lid, smooth the edges, and pinch to seal.
Bake in the slow oven until solid.
Avoid adding bones or water.
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.
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Pork + meattop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,208 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,121 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,777 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pork trimmings
- Provides the meat and fat that make up the filling's body and flavor.
- Sweet bone meat
- Adds tender meat from around the bones to the filling.
- Pie crust
- Forms the shaped case that holds the filling while it bakes.
The step that matters
Keeping fat and lean separate when layering. Layering fat and lean meat separately lets the fat baste the lean as it renders, keeping the filling moist and evenly textured rather than greasy in one spot or dry in another.
“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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