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A savory pork pie baked with gravy and pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Side Dishes, or Entrees

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Assemble

  1. Layer the pork pieces in a dish.

  2. Season with pepper and sage.

  3. Fill the dish with cold gravy.

  4. Cover with pastry, wetting the edges to seal.

  5. Decorate the surface with pastry shapes.

  6. Brush with beaten egg mixed with water.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes.

  2. Cover with paper and bake for 1 hour longer.

  3. Serve hot or cold.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  4. Pork + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,387 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Sage + eggtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh lean pork
Provides the meat filling that cooks through during the long bake.
Raw egg
Brushed on the pastry to promote browning and a glossy finish.
Pastry
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and seals in moisture.
Cold gravy
Fills the dish around the pork, adding moisture and flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Wetting the edges to seal. Moistening the pastry edges helps them bond so the crust closes fully, keeping juices and gravy inside during baking rather than leaking out.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Sagethe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, egg. 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.

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