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Stock for Pie

A rich stock made from geese and turkey bones, fowls, ham, onions, celery, herbs, and water, simmered and reduced for pie.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stock for Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place the bones, fowls, ham, onions, celery, thyme, parsley, sweet herbs, and water into a stewpan.

  2. Simmer slowly for 2 hours, ensuring it does not catch at the bottom.

  3. Add more stock to fill the stewpan.

  4. Boil slowly for 3 hours.

  5. Strain the liquid.

  6. Refill the stewpan with water.

  7. Boil it all evening.

  8. Skim the fat from the first liquid.

  9. Store the second liquid for future stock.

Finish for the pie

  1. Reduce it to fill the pie after baking.

  2. Pour the reduced stock into the pie an hour after it is out of the oven, covering the bacon.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  3. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

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

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bones of geese and turkeys
Releases gelatin and flavour into the liquid, giving the stock body.
2 old fowls
Contribute meat and collagen that enrich the stock's flavour and richness.
2 lbs. of lean ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the stock.
12 onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook down into the stock.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat from the first liquid. Fat left floating on the stock can make the finished liquid greasy and cloud its appearance, so it should be removed before the stock is reduced.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, ham, celery, thyme, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, ham, celery, thyme, parsley. 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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