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Blackbird Pie

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,049 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Blackbird Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

  1. Pick and draw the blackbirds, then stuff them with veal forcemeat.

  2. Line the bottom and sides of a pie dish with thin slices of steak.

  3. Place the blackbirds cut in halves into the dish, season with salt and pepper, and add slices of hard-boiled eggs.

  4. Fill the dish with good stock, cover with pie crust, and bake at 350°F (175°C).

  5. Add more stock before serving.

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. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,845 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

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