Why it works: Truffle and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,106 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓
Perigord 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 truffles
Smell the truffles and discard any that are musty.
Soak the truffles in fresh water for 2–3 hours to loosen the earth.
Rinse and scrub the truffles with a hard brush.
Peel the truffles, mince the small and broken ones, and set aside the whole ones.
Prepare the partridges
Truss the partridges as if for boiling, then bone and lard them.
Season the partridges with salt, pepper, and powdered spice.
Prepare highly-seasoned forcemeat according to the recipe for quenelles.
Mix the minced truffles with the forcemeat and stuff the partridges with whole truffles and some forcemeat.
Assemble and bake
Make a raised crust and line it with bacon slices and forcemeat.
Place the partridges in the crust, backs down, fill vacant spaces with forcemeat, and lay a slice of bacon on top.
Cover with the lid, decorate as desired, and bake in a well-heated oven at 400°F (200°C).
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.
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Truffle + peppertop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,106 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Truffles
- Provide the main earthy aroma that flavours the whole pie.
- Partridges
- Form the main meat, cooking to tender, juicy meat inside the crust.
- Forcemeat
- Fills gaps and stuffs the birds, keeping the meat moist and well seasoned.
- Bacon slices
- Lining and topping that add fat, moisture and savoury flavour as they render.
The step that matters
Assemble and bake with a well-heated oven. Starting in a properly preheated oven helps the crust set and brown quickly, limiting how long the meat sits in the moist interior and keeping the birds from drying out.
“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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