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A Partridge Pie

A pie of partridges packed with a forcemeat of minced bacon, veal and herbs, topped with ham and pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

A Partridge 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 the partridges

  1. Truss the partridges as you would fowls.

  2. Rub them with a mixture of pepper, salt, mace, and nutmeg.

  3. In a stew pan, combine bacon, veal, butter, sweet herbs, and minced shallots or onions.

  4. Stew until the meat is fully cooked, then drain in a colander.

  5. Pound the meat in a mortar, seasoning with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and mace, moistening with the stewing liquid.

Assemble the pie

  1. Prepare a rich pastry and spread it in a large, deep buttered dish.

  2. Place the partridges side by side, add a little water, a piece of butter, and cover with the pounded meat.

  3. Top with slices of cold ham.

  4. Roll out a thick piece of pastry for the lid, cover the pie, and cut the edges into square notches, folding over half of each notch.

  5. Decorate the lid with pastry leaves and flowers.

Bake and glaze

  1. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 3 hours, ensuring the oven is not too hot.

  2. Once done, glaze the pie with egg white.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Form the main filling and provide the dish's core meat.
Veal
Supplies lean meat that is pounded into a moist, fine filling.
Bacon
Adds fat that keeps the pounded meat moist and flavourful during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the stewed meat and the pie.
Shallots or onions
Contribute savoury sweetness and aroma to the stewed meat base.
Egg white
Gives the finished lid a glossy, golden glaze.

The step that matters

Keep the oven low and steady. Baking at 300°F for a long time lets the tough partridge and veal cook through gently. A hot oven would dry the meat and overcook the pastry before the filling is tender.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, nutmeg, veal, butter, shallot, ham, egg. 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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