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Partridge Pie

A savory pie made with partridges, beef gravy, roasted shallots, allspice, egg yolks, ketchup, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Partridge 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 draw the partridges.

  2. Carve three of them into six pieces each: wings, legs, breast, neck, head, and back.

  3. Keep one bird whole and trussed.

  4. Season the pieces with pepper, salt, and ground mace, and place them in a deep dish.

  5. Stuff the whole bird and place it in the center of the dish, breast side up.

Add the gravy and bake

  1. Pour the cold beef gravy over the game, which has been strained and infused with roasted shallots and allspice.

  2. Add the yolk of the hard boiled eggs and ketchup to the gravy mixture.

  3. Cover the dish with puff pastry.

  4. Bake in a moderately heated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Shallot + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 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
Provide the meat that forms the body of the pie.
Beef gravy
Supplies moisture and savoury depth that keeps the game from drying out.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Enrich the gravy, adding richness and a smooth, thickened body.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, golden top crust that browns in the oven.
Ketchup
Adds acidity and sweetness that balance the rich gravy and game.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. Baking at 350°F sets the pastry and cooks the game through while the gravy reduces; underbaking leaves the meat pink and the crust pale and doughy, while overbaking dries the birds.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, beef, shallot, allspice, egg, ketchup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, beef, shallot, allspice, egg, ketchup. 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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