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Pork Pie

A baked dish of pork chops in thickened broth, topped with biscuit crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Pork Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil pork chops in water with a little salt until tender.

  2. Thicken the broth with flour mixed with a little water.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a baking dish with biscuit dough.

  2. Layer meat, then strips of crust, then more meat.

  3. Pour in the thickened broth (about 1 pint) and season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  4. Add sliced potatoes if desired.

  5. Cover with top crust and bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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 + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together889 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Biscuit + potatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together841 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork chops
Provide the meat that becomes tender in the simmered broth and fills the pie.
Flour
Thickens the cooking broth into a gravy that holds the filling together.
Biscuit dough
Forms the crust that lines the dish and covers the top of the pie.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the seasoned broth, improving flavor and mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thicken the broth with flour mixed with a little water. Flour must be mixed smoothly with cold water first, because dry flour dropped into hot liquid clumps. A smooth slurry thickens the broth evenly as starch granules swell with heat.

Swap the potato

The recipe marks potato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, flour, biscuit, pepper, butter):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Turnipfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, flour, biscuit, pepper, butter. 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.

More pork pie recipes

English 10Leicestershire 6Cheshire 5Raised 5Apple 3Crust 3 See all 68 →

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