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Parsley Pie

A savory pie made with fowl or veal bones, parsley, milk, broth, cream, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Parsley Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crust

  1. Bake a crust over a dish.

  2. Line the dish around the edge with a little lining.

  3. Use a cup turned up to keep the crust from sinking.

  4. When baked, open the lid.

Make the filling

  1. Scald the parsley in milk.

  2. Season the parsley.

  3. Add the fowl or meat with the broth or gravy.

  4. Pour the stew into the dish.

  5. After baking, mix the cream, butter, and flour.

  6. Pour the mixture into the pie.

  7. Shake to mix with the gravy already in the pie.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Parsley + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  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

Fowl or bones of veal
Provides the meat and stock that form the body of the stew.
Parsley
Supplies the main green flavour and aroma of the filling.
Milk
Softens the parsley when scalded and adds a mild, creamy richness.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the filling becomes smooth rather than watery.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel in the sauce.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into the pie. Flour mixed into cream and butter thickens best when it is stirred smoothly into hot liquid. Adding it lumpy or cold can leave the filling streaky or lumpy.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, milk, cream, 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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