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A Christmas Goose Pie

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace 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 Christmas Goose Pie

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, melt 1 pound of butter with 1½ pints of water, stirring until it boils. Skim off any impurities.

  2. Sift 4 pounds of flour into a bowl, make a well in the center, and pour in the melted butter. Mix with a spoon to form a stiff paste, adding the beaten yolks of 3 or 4 eggs.

  3. Knead the dough on a floured surface until it is no longer sticky, then set aside to cool.

  4. Prepare the goose and fowl by splitting them down the back, loosening the flesh, and removing all bones.

  5. Parboil the smoked tongue, peel it, and cut off the root.

  6. Mix together nutmeg, mace, pepper, and salt, then season the fowl and goose with this mixture.

  7. Roll out the dough to about 1 inch thick and divide it into three pieces. Cut two pieces into oval shapes for the top and bottom crusts, and one into a long strip for the sides.

  8. Brush the dough with beaten egg white, then attach the side piece to the bottom piece, pinching the edges to seal.

  9. Place the goose, fowl, and tongue inside the crust, filling any remaining space with pieces of game or ham.

  10. Cover the filling with ½ pound of butter and place the top crust on.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + quailtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, egg, nutmeg, pepper, quail, ham):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, nutmeg, pepper, quail, ham. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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