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Perigord Pie

A savory pie filled with partridges, truffles, and forcemeat, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Perigord Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clean and bone the partridges, seasoning them well.

  2. Stuff the partridges with a mixture of bread, dried herbs, parsley, chopped livers, and grated ham.

  3. Line a dish with puff pastry.

  4. Bake the pastry until golden brown.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill the pastry with the stuffed partridges and chopped truffles, adding stock in between.

  2. Top with a layer of forcemeat and criss-cross strips of pastry.

  3. Bake for 1.5 hours at 350°F (175°C).

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 + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  2. Ham + truffletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together516 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Liver + truffletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  4. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  5. Bread + truffletop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together531 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Provide the main meat, which is stuffed and layered in the pie.
Truffles
Add a deep, earthy aroma that defines the dish.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, golden, flaky crust around the filling.
Bread
Binds the forcemeat so the stuffing holds together and stays moist.
Chopped livers
Add richness and fat to the forcemeat, adding depth and moisture.
Stock
Adds moisture to the filling as it cooks.

The step that matters

Bake the pastry until golden brown. Partly baking the pastry before filling helps it set and brown, so the base stays crisp rather than soggy under the moist partridge and stock filling.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, liver, ham, truffle):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, liver, ham, truffle. 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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