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French Pie

A savory pie filled with forcemeat, sweetbread, oysters, eggs, chicken limbs, artichoke bottoms, asparagus, mushrooms, and seasoned with mace, cloves, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 165 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

French Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the crust

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

  2. Grease a tin with butter and make a raised crust.

  3. Brush the crust with egg yolk.

  4. Cover the bottom with forcemeat.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the pie with sweetbread, oysters, hard-boiled eggs, chicken limbs, artichoke bottoms, asparagus tops, forcemeat balls, and mushrooms, layering them evenly.

  2. Season lightly with salt, mace, cloves, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until done.

Finish with gravy

  1. Once baked, pour in strong gravy and cream thickened with flour and butter.

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. Artichoke + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  3. Asparagus + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Butter + creamtop 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

Forcemeat
Forms a savoury base layer that holds the filling and adds rich, meaty flavour.
Sweetbread
Provides a tender, delicate meat texture within the filling.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and a firm, creamy texture to the layered filling.
Strong gravy
Adds moisture and deep savoury flavour to the baked pie.
Cream
Enriches the sauce, adding richness and a smoother, silkier texture.
Flour
Thickens the cream so it sets into a cohesive sauce rather than running.

The step that matters

Thickening the cream with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked into the butter and cream so starch swells and thickens the sauce; unthickened cream stays thin and can separate or run out when the pie is cut.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, oyster, chicken, artichoke, mushroom, cream):

  1. Asparagusthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, oyster, chicken, artichoke, mushroom, cream. 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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