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Partridge Pie

A savory pie filled with partridges, ham, veal cutlet, and stock, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Partridge Pie

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 dish

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line a pie dish with the veal cutlet.

  3. Place a slice of ham on top and season with pepper and salt.

Add the partridges

  1. Pluck, draw, and clean the partridges; cut off the legs at the first joint and season inside with pepper, salt, minced parsley, and a small piece of butter.

  2. Place the partridges in the dish and pour the stock over them.

Cover and bake

  1. Line the edges of the dish with puff pastry, cover with more pastry, and brush with egg yolk.

  2. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + vealtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Form the main meat, which turns tender and juicy as it cooks slowly in the pie.
Veal cutlet
Lines the dish and adds meaty body and moisture beneath the birds.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky crust that seals in steam and browns in the oven.
Stock
Adds moisture and savory flavor, keeping the filling from drying out while baking.
Ham
Contributes salty, savory flavor that seasons the veal layer.

The step that matters

Sealing the pastry and baking long enough. Partridge is lean and can dry out or stay underdone. A fully sealed crust traps steam and stock so the birds cook gently in their own juices. The bake must run long enough for the meat to cook through.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, mushroom, veal, ham):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mushroom, veal, ham. 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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