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Game Pie

A savory pie filled with small game birds, potatoes, and a rich gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Game Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the birds

  1. Clean the birds well, inside and out, and split them in half.

  2. Place the birds in a saucepan with 2 quarts of water and bring to a boil.

  3. Skim off any scum that rises, then add salt, pepper, parsley, onion, and cloves.

  4. Add the diced salt pork and boil until tender, ensuring the birds are covered with water.

Make the gravy

  1. Thicken the mixture with 2 tablespoons of browned flour and let it boil.

  2. Stir in the butter and remove from heat to cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare a rich pie crust and line the sides of a buttered pudding dish with it.

  2. Layer the birds and diced potatoes in the dish, alternating until full.

  3. Pour the gravy over the layers, cover with the top crust, and cut a slit in the center.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Quail + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together308 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Birds
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender as it simmers in the seasoned broth.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the broth and gravy as it cooks until tender.
Browned flour
Thickens the liquid into a gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Butter
Stirred into the gravy at the end to add richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, soaking up gravy and making the filling more substantial.
Rich pie crust
Forms the enclosing shell and top crust that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with browned flour. Flour must be fully dispersed and boiled so it thickens smoothly; stirring it in lumps or skipping the boil leaves a floury, thin gravy that will not hold the pie together.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, pepper, parsley, onion, pork, flour, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, pepper, parsley, onion, pork, flour, butter. 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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