Skip to main content
Main

Parsley Pie

A savory pie made with veal bones, parsley, milk, broth, cream, butter, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Parsley Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the fowl or veal bones and place them in a dish.

  2. Scald the picked parsley in milk and season it.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the parsley to the fowl or meat along with the broth or gravy.

  2. Bake until cooked through.

  3. Pour in the scalded cream mixed with butter and flour, shaking to combine with the gravy.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Parsley + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Fowl or veal bones
Provides the savoury meat base and most of the rich flavour of the pie.
Parsley
Supplies the herbal aroma and green flavour that defines this dish.
Milk
Scalding it draws parsley flavour into a mild, creamy liquid.
Broth or weak gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth as the meat cooks.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the sauce body.

The step that matters

Adding the cream, butter and flour mixture. Flour thickens only when it is evenly dispersed in the hot liquid. Shaking or stirring while pouring helps prevent lumps and keeps the sauce smooth rather than gluey or grainy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, milk, cream, walnut, butter, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, milk, cream, walnut, butter, flour. 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.

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes