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Partridge Pie

A pie filled with partridges stuffed with forcemeat of veal, ham, bacon, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Truss the partridges as you would for boiling and season with pepper, salt, and mace.

  2. Bake the veal and ham in the oven until tender, then drain and pound in a mortar.

  3. Mix the pounded meat with the cooking liquid, then add grated bread and chopped bacon to part of the forcemeat.

  4. Stuff each partridge with a walnut-sized piece of forcemeat.

Assemble the pie

  1. Make a raised crust in an oblong shape and layer the bottom with sliced bacon, veal, and small artichoke bottoms.

  2. Place the stuffed partridges on top, add a thick layer of forcemeat, and cover with more bacon slices.

  3. Brush the edges of the crust with beaten egg, cover with the top crust, and pinch to seal.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake for 3.5 hours, then brush the outside with beaten egg before serving.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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, cooked inside the pie and held together by the forcemeat.
Veal
Forms the bulk of the forcemeat, giving a tender, moist and sliceable texture.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the forcemeat and the pie's meat layers.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, keeping the forcemeat moist and flavourful during baking.
Egg
Beaten egg seals the crust edges and glazes the outside, promoting even browning.
Grated bread
Binds the forcemeat and helps it hold together when sliced.

The step that matters

Baking the forcemeat-filled pie for 3.5 hours. A long, gentle bake lets the partridges and forcemeat cook through evenly while the connective tissue in the veal softens. Sealing the crust well keeps moisture inside so the filling stays juicy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, veal, ham, shallot, parsley, lemon, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, veal, ham, shallot, parsley, lemon, thyme. 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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