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Partridge Pie, a LA Chasseur

A savory pie filled with partridges, veal, bacon, mushrooms, and sauces, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Partridge Pie, a LA Chasseur

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

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

  2. Cover the bottom of a pie dish with veal and bacon.

  3. Mix Soubise sauce, white sauce, mushrooms, parsley, thyme, Cayenne pepper, and salt.

  4. Spread half of the sauce over the veal and bacon.

Assemble and bake

  1. Arrange the partridge pieces neatly on top.

  2. Pour the remaining sauce over the partridges and smooth the surface.

  3. Place the halved egg yolks and small pieces of bacon on top.

  4. Cover the pie with puff pastry and bake for 1.5 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful during the long slow bake.
Veal
Adds meaty body and savoury depth to the pie base.
Streaky bacon
Adds fat and salty, smoky flavour that seasons the meat and sauce as it cooks.
Soubise sauce
Supplies a smooth, creamy onion-based sauce that keeps the filling moist.
White sauce
Adds creaminess and moisture, binding the filling together.
Button mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and moisture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Smooth the sauce over the partridges before covering. Spreading the sauce evenly keeps the filling moist and prevents dry patches, since the lean partridge meat can toughen and dry out during the long bake.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, sauce, mushroom, parsley, pepper, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Thymethe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, sauce, mushroom, parsley, pepper, 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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