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Raised Game Pie

A savory pie filled with veal, pork, assorted game, and aromatics, encased in a buttery pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Raised Game Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a fairly hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the paste

  1. Make a paste with flour, mixing in hot butter and milk.

  2. Add egg yolk and a little salt, then knead well.

  3. Line a raised pie mold with the paste, about ¼ inch thick.

Fill the pie

  1. Mince veal and pork, season with salt, pepper, cayenne, and nutmeg.

  2. Place the mince around the inside of the mold.

  3. Fill the center with fillets of game and sprinkle in mushrooms, truffles, pistachios, and parsley.

  4. Cover with more mince and wet the edges of the paste.

Close and bake

  1. Lay a top cover of paste, seal the edges, and trim.

  2. Use trimmings to create an ornament for the top.

  3. Tie a band of buttered paper around the mold about 3 inches above the top.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 1 hour.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the paste that holds the pie's shape as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the paste, and fat carries flavour through the crust.
Egg yolk
Enriches the paste and helps it bind and brown.
Veal
Forms the mince that gives the filling body and moisture.
Fresh pork
Adds fat and moisture to the mince, keeping the filling juicy.
Game
Provides the main meat flavour of the filling as fillets set in the center.

The step that matters

Tie the buttered paper band around the mold. Raised pies are built with tall walls and no tin support, so the paper band holds the paste upright while it sets in the oven. Without it, the walls can slump before the crust firms up.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, butter, egg, pepper, veal, pork):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, butter, egg, pepper, veal, pork. 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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