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Perigord Pie

A savory pie filled with green truffles, game bird meat, bacon, herbs, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Perigord Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Make a forcemeat with green truffles, herbs, liver, bacon, breadcrumbs, fowl, pepper, and salt.

  2. Lard the breasts of pheasants, partridges, woodcocks, or other birds with bacon.

  3. Cut the legs and wings from the backs and divide the backs.

  4. Season all parts with white pepper, Jamaica pepper, and salt.

Assemble the pie

  1. Make a thick raised crust and line it with bacon slices.

  2. Cover the crust with stuffing.

  3. Arrange the game parts and whole truffles on top.

  4. Add more stuffing and bacon slices over the top.

  5. Cover with a pie crust.

Bake

  1. Bake slowly until cooked through, adjusting time based on pie size.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Basil + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

What each ingredient does

Green truffles
Provide the principal aroma and flavour of the pie.
Bacon
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the lean game and forcemeat from drying out.
Liver
Adds richness and a dense, smooth texture to the forcemeat.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb juices and help bind the forcemeat so it holds its shape.
Fowl
Forms the bulk of the forcemeat and supplies the meaty structure of the filling.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until cooked through. Large pies with dense meat and forcemeat take a long time for heat to reach the centre. Baking slowly lets the interior cook through without the crust over-browning or the outer meat drying out before the middle is safely done.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, basil, thyme, parsley, marjoram, liver, pepper):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, basil, thyme, parsley, marjoram, liver, pepper. 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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