Name: Giblet Pie
Ingredients: giblets (head, neck, pinions, heart, gizzard, feet, and liver); 2 hard-boiled egg yolks; pepper; coarse sea salt; gravy from the giblets; consommé; ¼ cup Madeira wine; short pastry or puff pastry

Why it works: Liver and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,375 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Giblet Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the giblets

Scald and wash the giblets thoroughly.
Stew the giblets until very tender, similar to mutton cutlets.

Assemble the pie

Prepare a short or puff pastry.
Line a baking dish with the pastry.
Add the giblets to the dish along with the hard‑boiled egg yolks, pepper, salt, and giblet gravy.
Form a star of leaves on top of the pie.
Brush the pastry with egg.

Finish and bake

Reduce some consommé with Madeira wine.
Pour the reduced consommé into the pie before baking.
Bake the pie.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,375 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + madeira winetop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together582 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Liver + eggtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,177 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Liver + madeira winetop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together37 recipes
Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together50,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

What each ingredient does

Giblets: Provide the main filling, which becomes tender through long stewing.
Hard-boiled egg yolks: Add richness and a creamy texture to the filling.
Madeira wine: Adds depth and a sweet, nutty aroma when reduced.
Consommé: Adds moisture and savory flavor, concentrated by reducing.

“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.