Skip to main content
Main

Pie of Partridges

A savory pie filled with partridges, liver mixture, bacon, and beef, baked in a crust.

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

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pie of Partridges

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 birds

  1. Pluck, draw, and singe the partridges, then halve them lengthwise.

  2. Mince the livers and mix with parsley, salt, pepper, bread crumbs, and nutmeg.

  3. Stuff the mixture into the birds and place a piece of butter in each half.

Assemble the pie

  1. Butter a shallow pie dish and line the edges with pie crust.

  2. Lay a slice of beef at the bottom and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Wrap the birds in bacon and pack them breast down on the beef.

  4. Pour the stock over the birds and add a layer of bacon on top.

Bake

  1. Cover with pie crust, decorate, brush with beaten egg, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.

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

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + walnuttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Parsley + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 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

Partridges
Provide the main meat, which cooks in its own juices under the crust.
Bacon
Wraps the birds to add fat and moisture, keeping the lean meat from drying out.
Lean beef
Lies beneath the birds, adding savoury flavour to the juices collecting in the pie.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid from the minced livers, giving the stuffing a moist, binding texture.
Stock
Adds moisture and savoury depth, helping the birds stay tender as the pie bakes.
Beaten egg
Brushed on the crust to promote browning and a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Covering and baking the pie. Lean game birds dry out easily, so the stock, bacon wrapping and sealed crust must hold in moisture during the long bake at 350°F. Keeping the crust closed keeps the juices in the pie.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, pepper, bread, nutmeg, butter, beef, egg):

  1. Walnutthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Chickpeafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, pepper, bread, nutmeg, butter, beef, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes