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Fowl and Ham Pie

A savory pie filled with seasoned fowl and ham, topped with pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fowl and Ham Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and season

  1. Prepare the fowl and ham as directed for raised veal pie.

  2. Season the fowl and ham with salt, pepper, lemon zest, nutmeg or mace, and cayenne.

  3. Add chopped parsley and thyme, or use dried mixed herbs.

Assemble and bake

  1. Moisten the seasoned fowl with stock from the bones.

  2. Layer the fowl and ham in the pie crust, using forcemeat if desired.

  3. Bake the pie until golden brown, then fill with any remaining stock.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Forms the main meat and body of the filling.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the meat filling.
Stock from the bones
Keeps the seasoned meat moist and adds savoury depth.
Lemon zest
Adds a bright aroma that lightens the rich meat.

The step that matters

Filling the pie with the remaining stock. Stock poured in after baking fills the gaps around the meat. Gelatin released from the bones firms as the pie chills, so the stock sets to a jelly rather than running out when sliced.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, pepper, lemon, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper, lemon, parsley, thyme. 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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