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Excellent Pork Pies, to Eat Cold

A pork pie made with a boiled crust, seasoned pork filling, baked until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,121 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Excellent Pork Pies, to Eat Cold

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Raise the common boiled crust into a round or oval form.

  2. Prepare the trimmings and small bits of pork from a hog.

Fill

  1. Beat the pork with a rolling pin and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Layer the pork in the crust, keeping fat and lean separate, up to the top.

Close and bake

  1. Cover with the lid, smooth the edge, and pinch it closed.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until solid.

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. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Common boiled crust
Holds the filling in shape and forms the sealed case during baking.
Fat and lean pork
Fat adds moisture and richness, while lean pork gives the filling its firm, sliceable body.

The step that matters

Pinching the lid closed. A gap in the seal lets juices and steam escape during baking, so the filling can dry out and the crust can lose its structure. A tight, smooth seal keeps the moisture inside.

“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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