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Dessert

Pork Apple Pie

A pie with layers of thinly sliced pork and apples, seasoned with allspice, pepper, and sugar, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pork Apple 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.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the pie crust as usual and spread it over a large deep pie dish.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer thin slices of apple and pork in the dish, alternating layers with a light sprinkle of allspice, pepper, and sugar.

  2. Repeat the layering process for three layers of each ingredient.

  3. Cover with a crust on top and bake at 350°F (175°C) for one 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. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together998 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Pork + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

  5. Pork + allspicetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,194 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Fat pork
Adds richness and savoury flavour that contrasts with the sweet apples.
Apples
Provide moisture and tartness, and soften into the filling as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples brown at the edges.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes to the filling.

The step that matters

Layering the pork and apple. Thin, evenly spaced layers let the pork cook through while the apples soften without releasing too much juice at once. Uneven or thick layers can leave raw pork or a soggy, underbaked centre.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, allspice, pepper, sugar. 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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