Name: Giblet Pie
Ingredients: neck, feet, pinions, liver, and gizzard of a goose; ½ teaspoon grated lemon rind; ¼ teaspoon powdered mace; 2 tablespoons water; 1 tablespoon flour; 4 teaspoons sweet herbs; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon pepper; rough puff pastry for covering

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 ↓

Giblet Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the giblets

Scald the feet.
Skin the feet.
Open the gizzard.
Wash all thoroughly.
Cut the neck into small pieces.

Season and cover

Mix the flour, sweet herbs, salt, pepper, grated lemon rind, and mace on a plate.
Roll the giblets in the mixture.
Place them in a dish.
Add 2 tablespoons of water and cover.

Bake and serve

Decorate with rough puff pastry.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 2 hours.
Add 1 pint of well-seasoned stock.
Serve.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,257 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,404 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Lemon + macetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,315 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Mace and pepper 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

Goose giblets: Provide the meat and rich flavour that form the body of the pie.
Flour: Coats the giblets and helps thicken the juices as the pie cooks.
Sweet herbs: Add a fragrant, savoury aroma to the giblets.
Grated lemon rind: Adds a bright, fresh aroma that lifts the rich meat.
Powdered mace: Adds a warm, spiced aroma to the filling.
Rough puff pastry: Forms a flaky, browning crust over the filling.