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A Christmas Game Pie

A pie filled with pheasant, hare, chicken, partridges, pigeons, rabbits, kidneys, eggs, pickled mushrooms, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pheasant and rabbit share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 55 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

A Christmas Game 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. Cut the pheasant, hare, chicken, partridges, pigeons, and rabbits into pieces, removing all bones.

  2. Prepare a pie crust and line a pie dish with it.

Fill and bake

  1. Layer the meat pieces in the crust, adding kidneys and any seasonings.

  2. Mix in the eggs and pickled mushrooms.

  3. In a pot, boil the bones to make a good broth, then pour it into the pie.

  4. Seal the pie crust tightly and bake it in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

  5. Decorate the top with a head and tail made from the crust, and add feathers for presentation.

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. Pheasant + rabbittop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  3. Chicken + rabbittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pheasant + chickentop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together130 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the filling so it holds together when sliced.
Pheasant
Provides the main meat and rich flavour of the filling.
Rabbits
Adds lean meat that contributes body and savoury flavour to the filling.
Kidneys (sheep)
Adds deep, savoury, meaty flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Seal the pie crust tightly and bake until golden brown. A tight seal keeps the juices and broth inside while the filling cooks through; baking until golden brown ensures the meat is fully cooked and the crust is set and browned.

“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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