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Squirrel Pie

A savory pie made with squirrel meat, salt pork, and butter, baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,933 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Squirrel Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Stew

  1. In a saucepan, combine the cleaned squirrels, salt pork, and enough water to nearly cover the squirrels.

  2. Stew until the squirrels are half done.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Thicken the gravy and pour everything into a deep buttered dish.

  2. Cover with pie crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) for half an 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. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

  2. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + buttertop 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

Squirrels
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing in liquid.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the stewing liquid and gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that rounds out the seasoned gravy.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven as a sealed top layer.

The step that matters

Stew until the squirrels are half done. Stopping at the right point matters because the meat will cook further in the oven. Overcooking now leaves it dry and stringy after baking, while undercooking leaves it tough.

“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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