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Force-meat Pie

A pie filled with beets, parsley, leeks, bread crumbs, and butter, topped with pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Force-meat Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine beets, parsley, leeks, and bread crumbs.

  2. Add butter and mix until the mixture holds together; add water to keep it moist.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Form the mixture into balls and place them in a pie dish.

  2. Cover with pastry and bake 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together759 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Leek + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beets
Provide the main earthy flavor and color of the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body so it holds together.
Butter
Adds richness and, worked with flour, helps bind the mixture and aid browning.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like sweetness and savory depth to the filling.

The step that matters

Add butter and water until the mixture just holds together. Too little moisture leaves the filling crumbly, while too much makes it soggy under the pastry. Adding water gradually lets you judge the texture by feel before shaping the balls.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, bread, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, bread, butter, flour, pepper. 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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