Why it works: Quail and turkey share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Game Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Bone the partridge and quail as directed in the boning recipe.
Prepare the forcemeat according to the boned turkey recipe.
Make the pastry as per the meat and game pies recipe.
Assemble the pie
Grease a pie mold with cold butter.
Roll out the pastry to ½ inch thick.
Place the mold on a buttered plate.
Lay the pastry inside the mold.
Press the pastry into the mold.
Trim the pastry above the rim of the mold.
Line the bottom and sides of the mold with forcemeat.
Fill the quail with forcemeat.
Place the quail inside the partridge.
Fill the space between the quail and partridge with more forcemeat.
Lay the partridge in the mold.
Fill any empty space with forcemeat.
Wet the edge of the side crust with cold water.
Place a thick upper crust on top.
Cut or decorate the upper crust.
Make steam escape holes in the upper crust.
Brush the upper crust with beaten egg.
Bake and serve
Cover the pie with buttered paper.
Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) for three hours.
Brown the pie at the end.
Serve hot or cold.
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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Quail + turkeytop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together28 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Turkey + meattop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together540 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,592 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Quail + meattop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together48 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
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Quail + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together512 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Partridge
- Forms the main boned meat filling, giving the pie its substance and flavour.
- Quail
- Adds a second layer of boned game meat inside the partridge, enriching the filling.
- Forcemeat
- Fills gaps around the birds and keeps the meat moist and tender during slow baking.
- Pastry
- Forms the shell and lid that hold the filling together and bake to a crisp, sturdy crust.
- Egg
- Brushed on the upper crust to promote browning and a glossy finish.
The step that matters
Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) for three hours. A low, slow oven lets the thick filling cook through evenly without drying the meat or scorching the pastry. Browning is saved for the end, once the interior is done.
“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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