Name: A Good Common English Game Pie
Ingredients: 1 neck of venison; salt; cayenne pepper; pounded mace; nutmeg; 1 young hare

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

A Good Common English Game Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meats

Trim the neck of venison to fit the dish.
Rub the meat with a mixture of salt, cayenne, pounded mace, and nutmeg.
Cut the hare into joints and bone the back and thighs.
Fill the hare with the prepared mixture.

Assemble and bake

Assemble the pie and bake until golden brown.

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.

Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,257 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Venison + macetop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together204 recipes
Venison + peppertop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together955 recipes

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

Pepper and mace 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

Venison: Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the pie its rich, meaty flavour.
Hare: Adds a gamey flavour and firmer texture to the filling.
Mace: Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the seasoned meat.