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Raised Pies of Game or Poultry

A pie made by stuffing a whole game bird with veal, ham, and forcemeat, baked at 350°F, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,264 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Raised Pies of Game or Poultry

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the bird

  1. Cut the bird open down the back and bone it without injuring the skin.

  2. Season the inside with pepper, coarse sea salt, and pounded mace.

  3. Spread a layer of veal forcemeat inside the bird.

  4. Add a layer of veal slices, then a layer of ham or tongue slices.

  5. Top with another layer of forcemeat and restore the bird's shape.

Fill and bake the pie

  1. Line a pie dish with ½ inch of veal forcemeat.

  2. Place the bird on the forcemeat and cover with more forcemeat.

  3. Fill vacant spaces with forcemeat and pieces of ham and veal.

  4. Add a slice of butter and two bay leaves on top.

  5. Cover the pie and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  6. While baking, stew the bones with seasoning to make gravy.

Finish with gravy and serve

  1. If the gravy isn't strong enough to jelly when cold, dissolve a little isinglass in it.

  2. Pour the gravy into the pie when done and 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. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Mace + vealtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Bird
Forms the main body of the pie and provides the meat at its centre.
Veal forcemeat
Binds the filling and forms a moist, soft layer around the bird.
Veal
Adds meaty flavour and body to the layered filling.
Ham or tongue
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the layers inside the pie.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that keeps the filling moist as it bakes.
Isinglass (in the method)
Gelatin-like setting agent that helps the gravy jelly when cold.

The step that matters

Bone the bird without tearing the skin. The skin wraps the forcemeat and holds the bird's shape. A torn skin lets the filling leak and weakens the pie's structure during baking and slicing.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

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