Skip to main content
Main

Pork Pies

A savory pie made with pork loin, liver, kidneys, brains, and sausage meat, wrapped in crust and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pork and liver are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,606 recipes. Both carry 1-nonanal, which smells fatty, waxy. The science ↓

Pork Pies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meats

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Remove the rind and excess fat from the pork loin.

  3. Season the pork loin with coarse sea salt.

  4. Bone the meat for a raised pie.

  5. Distribute the fat and lean evenly.

  6. Pack the meat tightly without adding gravy.

  7. Mix half the pork into sausage meat with dried sage.

  8. Wrap morsels in thin fillets of the remaining pork.

Make the liver forcemeat

  1. Fry the pork liver in butter until cooked.

  2. Let the liver cool.

  3. Pound the cooled liver with an equal weight of bacon fat and spices in a mortar.

Blanch and slice the offal and meat

  1. Blanch the pork brains.

  2. Slice the brains.

  3. Blanch the kidneys and lean pork.

  4. Slice the kidneys and lean pork.

  5. Season all the meat well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Lay the liver forcemeat inside a raised pie crust.

  2. Add the sliced meats and bay leaves.

  3. Cover with a lid of crust.

  4. Bake for 2-3 hours, depending on the size.

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. Pork + livertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  2. Pork + meattop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

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

  4. Sage + livertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

  5. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork loin
Forms the bulk of the filling, giving the pie its meaty body and texture.
Pork liver
Gives a rich, smooth forcemeat that adds depth and moisture to the filling.
Bacon fat
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the liver forcemeat smooth and succulent.
Pork kidneys
Contribute a firm, distinctive texture and savoury flavour to the filling.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling, holding its shape while the meat cooks and browns.

The step that matters

Packing the meat tightly without gravy. Tight packing removes air gaps so the filling holds its shape when sliced. Adding liquid can make the crust soggy and the pie unstable as it bakes.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, meat, butter, liver):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Sagethe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, meat, butter, liver. 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.

More pork pies recipes

Cold 5 See all 7 →

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipes