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A French Pie Raised to Be Served Cold

A cold French meat pie filled with boned poultry, forcemeat, ham, livers, and bacon, topped with a crust and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and truffle work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 516 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

A French Pie Raised to Be Served Cold

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Bone the chickens, partridges, or pheasants, removing all bones while keeping the skin intact.

  2. Sprinkle pepper and coarse sea salt inside the boned meat.

  3. Fill the meat with forcemeat, ham, and fat livers.

  4. Close the opening by pulling the neck skin over the filling.

Assemble the pie

  1. Prepare a thick crust for the pie and secure all joining parts.

  2. Line the bottom and sides of the pie with slices of fat bacon.

  3. Fill the pie with the prepared meat mixture, ensuring no cavities remain.

  4. Cover the pie with more fat bacon and place three bay leaves on top.

  5. Add a little truffle cooking liquid or strong broth for moisture.

  6. Egg the edge of the pie.

  7. Place a thick crust on top, sealing it well.

  8. Trim the edges and decorate the top with a star of leaves and a hole in the center.

  9. Egg wash the top.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400 °F (200 °C) for about 4 hours for a small pie, longer for larger ones.

  2. Monitor the pie to prevent burning.

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. Ham + truffletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together516 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + truffletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together756 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Liver + truffletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens, partridges, or pheasants
Provide the boned meat that forms the body of the pie.
Forcemeat made of chicken livers
Adds a moist, soft filling that keeps the meat tender as it cooks.
Lean ham
Adds savoury flavour and a contrasting texture within the filling.
Fat bacon
Lines and covers the pie, basting the meat with fat and adding savoury flavour.
Truffle cooking liquid or strong broth
Adds moisture and savoury depth to the filling.
Egg
Seals the crust and gives the top a glossy, browned finish.

The step that matters

Egg-sealing the crust. The egg wash bonds the top and bottom crust so juices stay inside, and it browns the surface during the long bake. Gaps let juices leak and the crust dry out.

“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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