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Game Pie

Game pie made with birds, sausage, bread crumbs, truffles, tongue, spices, and a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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 crust

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a raised pie mold carefully inside.

  3. In a bowl, mix the butter and flour, rubbing the butter into the flour.

  4. Beat the egg and mix half with enough water to moisten the paste.

  5. Knead the mixture into a firm paste and set aside a piece the size of an apple for the lid.

  6. Roll the larger piece into an oblong shape to line the mold, pressing it neatly inside.

Prepare the filling

  1. Wash and split the birds lengthwise, removing all bones.

  2. Wash the hearts and livers, then chop them.

  3. Combine the sausage meat, bread crumbs, chopped livers, and hearts in a bowl. Add pepper and ½ teaspoon salt, mixing thoroughly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer a little of the mixture in the bottom of the mold, followed by half of one bird, a sprinkle of pepper, salt, and nutmeg, then some sausage meat, truffles, and tongue.

  2. Repeat the layering until all ingredients are used, filling spaces with sausage meat.

  3. Wet the edges with water and place the lid on top, making an opening in the center.

  4. Decorate the top, brush with egg, and bake for about 1.5 hours.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structural paste that holds the pie walls and lid together.
Butter
Rubbed into flour to add tenderness and richness to the crust.
Egg
Moistens the paste and gives the top a glossy, browned finish.
Sausage meat
Binds the filling and adds moisture and savoury richness as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs juices from the meat and helps hold the filling together.
Birds
Provide the main meat, whose juices moisten the filling during baking.

The step that matters

Layering the filling and sealing the lid. Wet edges must be sealed tightly and a central opening made, so steam can escape and the pastry does not burst or turn soggy while the meat cooks through.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, truffle, pepper, flour, butter, egg):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, truffle, pepper, flour, butter, 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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