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Dessert

Louisiana Squirrel Pie

A pie made with squirrels, bacon, eggs, cream, and pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Louisiana Squirrel Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the squirrels in salted water.

  2. Line a baking dish with pastry.

  3. Cut the squirrels into pieces.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the squirrel pieces in the dish with a slice of bacon and the hard boiled eggs.

  2. Fill the dish with cream and season with black pepper.

  3. Cover the dish with a crust.

  4. Bake.

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. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Squirrels
Provide the meat that forms the body of the pie.
Pastry for lining
Forms the crust that holds the filling and bakes to a golden, crisp edge.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the meat and cream.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and a firm, sliceable texture to the filling.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, setting into a tender custard-like filling as it bakes.

The step that matters

Parboil the squirrels in salted water.. Parboiling partly cooks the meat before baking, so it becomes tender and the pie's cream filling does not have to cook the meat through alone. Salted water also seasons the meat from the start.

“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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