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Lark Pie

A savory pie filled with larks, steak, bacon, stock, and herbs, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lark Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Bone the larks and stuff them with the filling.

  2. Cut the beef into small thin slices and the bacon into strips.

Assemble the pie

  1. Put a layer of beef at the bottom of a pie dish, arrange the larks on top, and intersperse the remaining meat and bacon strips.

  2. Season well with pepper and salt, fill with stock, and cover with puff pastry.

  3. Brush the top with egg yolk and bake at 400°F (200°C) until the pastry has risen and set.

  4. Then reduce the temperature to 300°F (150°C) and cook for about 1 hour.

  5. Before serving, add the remaining stock carefully through the hole in the pastry.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky crust that rises and sets over the filling.
Rump steak
Provides the meat that cooks down in the pie and adds savoury flavour.
Bacon
Adds fat and salty, smoky flavour that moistens the meat during baking.
Egg yolk
Brushed on top, it promotes browning of the pastry crust.
Stock
Adds moisture and savoury depth, keeping the filling juicy as it cooks.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F, then reduce to 300°F. A hot start lets the pastry rise and set quickly, while the lower temperature cooks the meat gently so it becomes tender without drying out.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, mushroom, parsley, lemon, egg, 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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