Name: Giblet Pie
Ingredients: giblets; a bunch of sweet herbs; 1 onion stuck with cloves; pepper; salt; water; beef or mutton steak (optional)

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,451 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Giblet Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Clean the giblets thoroughly.
In a saucepan, combine giblets, sweet herbs, and onion.
Season with pepper and salt.
Add a small quantity of water and let them stew gently until tender.
Place the giblets in a dish, adding a beef or mutton steak at the bottom if desired.
Strain the cooking liquid and pour it into the pie.
Bake until the crust is golden brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together16,901 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, beef):

Garlicbetter flavor fit
Thymebetter flavor fit
Celerybetter flavor fit
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, beef. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).