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Rook Pie

A savory pie made with rooks, beef steak, butter, pastry, stock, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Rook Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Carefully skin the rooks without plucking them.

  2. Remove the spines and the flesh on either side, as it has a very bitter taste; use only the breasts.

  3. Cut the beef steak into small strips.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a pie dish, layer the seasoned rooks and beef, adding small pieces of butter among them.

  2. Optionally, stew the rooks in good stock for about 45 minutes before adding to the pie.

  3. Bake for about 1 hour.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rooks
Provide the main meat, giving the pie its substance and flavour.
Beef steak
Adds richer meat flavour and body to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the filling and keeps the meat moist as it bakes.
Good pastry
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Removing the bitter flesh. The flesh on either side of the spine has a very bitter taste, so leaving it in can make the whole pie taste bitter. Using only the breasts keeps the filling mild.

“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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