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Bird Pie

A pie of small birds simmered in gravy and topped with pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bird Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the birds

  1. Carefully clean the birds, ensuring no feathers remain.

  2. Place the birds in a pan with 1 quart of hot water.

  3. Season the birds inside and out with salt and pepper.

  4. Dredge the birds thickly with flour and add ½ cup of butter over them.

  5. Set the pan in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown for 15-20 minutes, turning the birds occasionally.

  6. Transfer the browned birds to a saucepan and stew until cooked through.

  7. If the gravy is too thin, add flour mixed with butter and 1 teacup of cream.

Make the pastry and bake

  1. For the pastry, mix 1 quart of flour, ½ pound of butter, and 2 tablespoons of lard.

  2. Line a deep baking pan with the pastry, pour in the birds and gravy, and cover with a top crust.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the crust is light brown.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  5. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Coats the birds and thickens the gravy so it clings rather than running thin.
Butter
Enriches the birds and gravy and helps the flour-coated surface brown in the oven.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and body to the gravy when it is thickened with flour.
Sweet lard
Makes the pastry tender and flaky by keeping flour particles coated in fat.

The step that matters

Browning the dredged birds before stewing. Flour and butter must brown well in the hot oven; under-browning leaves a pale, raw-tasting coating, while over-browning can scorch the flour and turn the gravy bitter.

“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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