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Game Pie

A savory pie filled with finely chopped veal, game meats, and assorted ingredients, topped with aspic and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Pistachio and nuts match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Game 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 filling

  1. Chop veal and veal fat very fine, then season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and cayenne.

  2. Line a china raised pie mold with the seasoned mixture.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the mold with fillets of game, tongue, ham, hard-boiled yolks, mushrooms, pistachio nuts, truffles, and pâté.

  2. Cover with more of the minced mixture and place a pastry lid on top.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2.5 to 3 hours.

Set and decorate

  1. Remove the pastry lid and fill the mold with clarified meat jelly while it's still partly cold; let it set.

  2. Decorate the top with chopped aspic and alternate slices of lemon and cucumber.

  3. Arrange croutons of aspic at the base of the mold.

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. Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  3. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Pheasant + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Ham + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the seasoned minced layer that holds the pie together and gives it body when sliced.
Veal fat
Adds richness and moisture so the minced meat stays juicy during baking.
Clarified meat jelly
Sets into a clear jelly that adds moisture and a silky texture around the filling.
Pâté de foie gras
Adds rich, buttery flavour and a smooth texture to the filling.
Truffles
Contribute a strong, earthy aroma that perfumes the filling.

The step that matters

Let the jelly set while partly cold. Pouring jelly in while it is still partly cold lets it thicken and set around the filling instead of soaking through and turning cloudy or runny, so the slices hold their shape.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, pheasant, ham, egg, mushroom, pistachio):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, pheasant, ham, egg, mushroom, pistachio. 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.

More game pie recipes

English 13Christmas 6Forcemeat 4Raised 4Venison and Hare 4French 3 See all 39 →

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