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Woodcock Raised Pie, Hot

A pie filled with woodcock and forcemeat, topped with brown sauce and optional truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,032 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Woodcock Raised Pie, Hot

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

  1. Prepare forcemeat as in the previous recipe.

  2. Line a pie mold with pastry.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill the mold with alternate layers of forcemeat and pieces of woodcock.

  2. Leave a hollow in the center of the pie for a piece of bread crumb covered with fat bacon while baking.

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

Finish and serve

  1. Once baked, pour in good brown sauce made from the woodcock trimmings stewed in beef gravy.

  2. Fill the hollow with sliced truffles mixed in brown sauce.

  3. Serve hot on a dish covered with a napkin.

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. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Beef + truffletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together412 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethylphenol (must).

  3. Bread + truffletop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together531 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Sauce + breadtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + truffletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,490 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Woodcocks
Provides the main meat, cooked through in the pie to give savoury flavour and substance.
Forcemeat
Forms layers around the birds that keep the meat moist and add a rich, seasoned texture.
Pastry
Encloses the filling, holding its shape and sealing in moisture while the pie bakes.
Good brown sauce
Adds moisture and deep savoury flavour to the baked pie.
Fat bacon
Bastes the bread crumb in the hollow, adding fat and savoury flavour as it bakes.

The step that matters

Leave a hollow in the center of the pie. The hollow holds the bread crumb and bacon while the pie bakes, and it leaves room for the sauce and truffles added after baking. Without it, the filling can be crowded and the finished pie harder to finish with sauce.

“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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