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Raised Pie or Fowls

A pie made by stuffing a fowl with forcemeat, veal, and bacon, then baking and serving with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Raised Pie or Fowls

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fowl

  1. Prepare the paste and forcemeat as directed in the previous recipe.

  2. Lay the fowl breast down on a clean cloth.

  3. Season the inside of the fowl with pepper, salt, and chopped onions.

  4. Spread a layer of forcemeat, ½ inch thick, over the fowl.

  5. Layer half of the veal and bacon alternately on the fowl, seasoning with pepper and salt.

  6. Cover with more forcemeat.

  7. Add the remaining veal and bacon.

  8. Top with more forcemeat.

  9. Roll the fowl over to meet the skin at the back.

Build the pie

  1. Line a raised pie mold with paste.

  2. Line the pie with ½ inch of forcemeat.

  3. Place the fowl inside the pie.

  4. Sprinkle with pepper and salt.

  5. Cover with the remaining forcemeat to form a dome.

  6. Top with a pat of butter and the bay leaves.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until done.

  2. Pour in ½ cup of gravy made from the fowl's bones.

  3. Serve cold.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + vealtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Young fowl
Forms the main body of the pie and provides the meat at its centre.
Forcemeat
Binds the filling and lines and covers the fowl, keeping the meat moist as it cooks.
Veal
Adds tender meat layers that cook through within the forcemeat.
Fat bacon
Melts during baking, adding fat that keeps the layers moist and flavourful.
Gravy
Added after baking to moisten the pie with concentrated fowl flavour.

The step that matters

Rolling and sealing the fowl in forcemeat. Forcemeat must fully surround the fowl and its layers without gaps, because air pockets or thin spots let the filling dry out and cook unevenly during the long bake.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, veal, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, veal, butter. 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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