Skip to main content
Main

Perigord Pie

A savory pie filled with stewed veal, bacon, and herbs, topped with bacon slices and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Perigord 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 forcemeat

  1. Cut the veal and bacon into small bits.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the meat with butter, shallots, parsley, and thyme.

  3. Stew until the meat is tender.

  4. Season the mixture as directed for partridges.

  5. Strain and pound the meat until smooth, mixing with some of the cooking liquid.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare a pie crust and place the partridges inside.

  2. Spread the forcemeat over the partridges and layer with thin slices of bacon.

  3. Cover the pie with a thick lid, sealing the edges well.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for three hours, ensuring the oven is not too hot when placing the pie inside.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main body of the forcemeat, which sets firm and sliceable after slow cooking.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the forcemeat and moistens the lean veal.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth texture to the stewed meat mixture.
Shallots
Contribute a mild, sweet aromatic flavour as the meat stews.

The step that matters

Preheated oven, not too hot. Placing the pie into an oven that is too hot can cause the crust to brown or burn before the thick filling cooks through. Starting at a moderate heat lets the forcemeat cook gently and evenly over the long bake.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, shallot, parsley, thyme, truffle, garlic):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, shallot, parsley, thyme, truffle, garlic. 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.

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes