Skip to main content
Main

Menu for a Party of Eight

A roasted game bird and rabbit dish with a rich sauce and liver paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,491 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Menu for a Party of Eight

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Roast the birds.

  2. Detach the meat from their breasts and set it aside.

Make the sauce

  1. Use the bones and scraps with ½ pint of gravy and mushroom liquor, lean bacon, chopped onion, spiced pepper, sweet herbs, and grated lime peel to make a strong game essence.

  2. Strain and thicken the essence with butter and flour, then reduce it to make a rich sauce.

  3. Add red currant jelly, red wine, and a little vinegar.

Make the liver paste

  1. Chop the livers of the birds and rabbit into dice with fat bacon and minced shallot.

  2. Toss the mixture in a frying pan for a few minutes.

  3. Pound the mixture into a paste, adding 1 tablespoon of minced truffle trimmings and spiced pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cut the saved breast meat into dice and mix it with the sauce and liver paste.

  2. Pack the mixture into well-buttered paper or china cases, sprinkle with bread crumbs, and place in the oven until hot.

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 + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Lime + red curranttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Mushroom + red winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together720 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 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

Livers of the birds and rabbit
Provide the rich, savoury body and smooth texture of the paste.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the thickened sauce carry a silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the game essence into a sauce that coats the meat.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tang that balances the gamey flavour.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth to the reduced sauce.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping as the paste heats in the oven.

The step that matters

Pound the liver mixture into a paste. Cooking the livers until just set and then pounding them while warm gives a smooth, even texture. Overcooked livers turn grainy and dry, and the paste can then separate or taste bitter.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, onion, pepper, lime, butter, flour, red wine):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, onion, pepper, lime, butter, flour, red wine. 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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipes