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Reed-bird Pie

A pie made with reed birds stuffed with veal, ham, bread crumbs or oysters, lined with pastry, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Reed-bird Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the birds

  1. Pluck and dress the birds, leaving them whole.

  2. Stuff the birds with veal, ham, bread crumbs, or oysters.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line an earthen baking dish with pastry.

  2. Layer the birds in the dish with flour, butter, wine, gravy, and seasonings.

  3. Use 1 tablespoon each of butter and flour, ⅓ cup of wine, and 1 cup of gravy for every dozen birds.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and powdered spice.

  5. Cover the birds with pastry, wetting the edges to seal.

  6. Cut slits in the crust for steam to escape.

  7. Brush the crust with beaten egg.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until nicely browned.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  3. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Reed birds
Form the main filling, cooking down into tender meat within the pie.
Veal
Adds meat and richness to the stuffing, keeping the filling moist.
Ham
Contributes savory, salty flavor to the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices in the stuffing, helping it hold together and stay moist.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the crust and filling brown.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a rich, cohesive gravy-like sauce.

The step that matters

Cutting steam slits in the crust. Trapped steam can lift or soften the pastry and make the filling wet. Vents let steam escape so the crust bakes crisp and the juices thicken rather than pooling.

“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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