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Squirrel Pie

A pie made from squirrel meat simmered with water, butter, pepper, coarse sea salt, and flour, topped with a biscuit crust or puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Squirrel Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the squirrels

  1. Prepare the squirrels for broiling.

  2. Cut the squirrels into pieces.

  3. Place the pieces in a saucepan with enough water to cover.

  4. Once the liquid boils, discard the water.

  5. Cover the saucepan again with hot water.

  6. Boil until the squirrel pieces are tender.

Season and thicken

  1. Season the mixture with butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Add a little salt when adding the second water.

  3. Thicken the mixture by stirring flour and water together smoothly.

  4. Move the saucepan to the side of the stove.

  5. Taste the mixture for seasoning.

Assemble and bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to an earthen baking dish.

  2. Cover the dish with a biscuit crust or puff pastry, leaving a 1-2 inch opening in the center for steam to escape.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crust is 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Squirrels
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long boiling.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce when stirred in smoothly with water.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the seasoned sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the mixture with flour and water. Flour must be stirred into water first to form a smooth slurry; added dry, it clumps and cannot thicken the liquid evenly.

“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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