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Meat Pies, Etc

A savory pie filled with various meats, seasoned with salt, pepper, lemon, parsley, and optional aromatics, baked or stewed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Meat Pies, Etc

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.

Prepare the meat

  1. Wipe the meat with a clean damp cloth or wash if necessary, then trim and cut into small pieces or thin slices.

  2. Season the meat with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and any additional flavorings to taste.

  3. If using white meat, add grated lemon rind, lemon juice, and finely-chopped parsley.

  4. For darker meats, consider adding chopped onion or shallot and Jamaica pepper.

  5. Optionally, brown the meat in a little fat for richer flavor before placing it in the pie dish.

  6. If a thicker gravy is desired, coat the meat with flour.

  7. For tougher meat, partially cook it before placing it in the pie dish to retain flavor.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pack the prepared meat loosely into a pie dish, ensuring it is raised in the center for a plump appearance.

  2. Cover the pie dish and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour or longer, or stew in a jar or double cooker until tender.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef, mutton, veal, pork, chicken, pigeon, rabbit, or game
Forms the main filling and, as it cooks, becomes tender and flavorful.
Flour
Thickens the juices into a gravy when coated onto the meat.
Fat
Browning in fat builds richer, deeper meaty flavor on the meat surface.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the meat.
Chopped onion or shallot
Adds savory aromatic flavor to darker meats.

The step that matters

Partially cook tougher meat before packing. Tough cuts need long, moist heat to break down connective tissue, so starting them first helps the filling become tender during baking rather than staying chewy.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, lemon, parsley, flour, meat):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, lemon, parsley, flour, meat. 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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