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Parsley Pie

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Parsley Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald the parsley in milk and season it.

  2. Add the parsley to the fowl or meat along with the broth or gravy.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake until done, then pour in the scalded cream mixed with butter and flour.

  2. Shake to mix with the gravy already in the dish.

  3. If desired, add scalded lettuces, mustard leaves, or spinach.

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. Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together491 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Parsley
Provides the main green flavour and body of the filling after it is scalded in milk.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the cream and gravy so the sauce holds together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the flour thicken the sauce smoothly.

The step that matters

Pouring in the cream mixture after baking. Flour thickens sauce only when it is heated enough, and cream can curdle or turn grainy if it boils hard. Adding the scalded cream mixture near the end, then mixing gently, gives a smooth, cohesive gravy.

Swap the lettuce

The recipe marks lettuce as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, parsley, milk, cream, walnut, butter, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, milk, cream, walnut, butter, flour. 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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