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Carp Pie

A savory pie made with carp, eel, oysters, and a sauce of wine, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Carp 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 carp and filling

  1. Scrape scales, gut, and wash the carp clean.

  2. Boil the eel until almost tender, then pick off the meat and mince it finely.

  3. Mix minced eel with bread crumbs, herbs, lemon peel, pepper, salt, nutmeg, anchovy, oysters, and egg yolks, then roll the mixture with butter and fill the carp's belly.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil eel bones with mace, whole pepper, onion, herbs, and anchovy until reduced to half a pint.

  2. Strain the liquid, add white wine and butter mixed with flour, then boil again.

Bake and serve

  1. Prepare a pie crust, cover the dish, and place the carp inside.

  2. Pour the sauce into the pie, cover with the lid, and bake for 1 hour at 400°F (200°C).

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

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

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

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Anchovy + oystertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp
Forms the main body of the pie, supplying the flaky, mild fish that the filling complements.
Eggs
Egg yolks bind the minced filling and help it hold together when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, keeping the filling moist and giving the sauce body when mixed with flour.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the filling, giving it a softer, more cohesive texture.
White wine
Adds acidity and flavour to the sauce, brightening the richer ingredients.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Reducing the eel bone stock to half a pint. Boiling concentrates the flavour of the stock; if it is not reduced enough the sauce will taste thin, and if over-reduced it may become too salty or intense once the wine is added.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, lemon, pepper, anchovy, oyster, egg, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, lemon, pepper, anchovy, oyster, egg, 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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