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Pate Chaud De Mauviettes [Lark Pie]

A savory pie of stuffed larks baked in pastry with a sauce of sherry, demi‑glace, and consomme.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pate Chaud De Mauviettes [Lark Pie]

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Prepare a paste like ordinary short pastry.

  2. Line an oval raised pie mold, about 3 inches high and 6 inches long.

  3. Bone the larks.

  4. Stuff the larks with forcemeat, shaping them neatly.

  5. Prepare a thin sauce with the bones, brown sauce, sherry, and consomme or gravy.

  6. Reduce the sauce well.

  7. Wrap a slice of bacon around each stuffed lark.

  8. Pluck and clean a few heads of the birds.

  9. Fry them in a little butter.

  10. Set aside to garnish the pie before serving.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the bottom of the mold with thin slices of bacon.

  2. Place a layer of larks in the mold.

  3. Add yolks of hard‑boiled eggs here and there.

  4. Continue layering until full.

  5. Cover the mold with paste.

  6. Ornament it tastefully.

  7. Brush with egg yolk.

  8. Bake for about 2 hours at 350°F (175°C).

Serve

  1. When baked, carefully remove the cover.

  2. Reduce the sauce if needed.

  3. Pour it over the interior.

  4. Replace the cover.

  5. Garnish with the birds' heads 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Larks
Form the main filling, providing the meat that the stuffing and sauce accompany.
Eggs
Hard-boiled yolks add richness and body, while the beaten yolk gives the crust a golden browned finish.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor when frying the birds' heads for garnish.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and tender during baking.
Flour
Forms the structural paste that encloses and holds the pie together.

The step that matters

Reduce the sauce well. The sauce must be concentrated so it flavors the pie without making the interior watery. Reducing it removes excess liquid and intensifies the flavor of the bones, brown sauce, and sherry.

“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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