Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Green-Goose Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the geese
Bone the geese and singe them clean.
Season the geese inside and out with salt, pepper, mace, and allspice.
Assemble and bake
Place one goose inside the other, pressing them closely together.
Cover the geese with a good amount of butter.
Bake in the oven with or without a crust, ensuring a tight cover if without crust.
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.
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Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,395 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,189 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,257 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Mace + buttertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,405 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
- Geese
- Provide the main meat, whose rich fat keeps the pie moist during baking.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, coating the geese so they stay tender as they bake.
The step that matters
Covering the geese without a crust. If baked without a crust, a tight cover traps steam and heat so the meat cooks through and stays moist rather than drying out in the oven.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, allspice, butter):
- Thymefits better
- Clovefits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, butter. 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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