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Raised Game Pie

A savory pie of game meats layered with eggs and mushrooms, set in aspic jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Raised Game Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the aspic jelly according to package instructions and set aside.

  2. Clean and prepare the partridges or pigeons.

Assemble

  1. In a bowl, combine veal, fresh pork, and lean ham; season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and nutmeg.

  2. Layer the meat mixture in a pie dish, adding hard-boiled eggs and mushrooms or truffles between layers.

  3. Pour the aspic jelly over the layered ingredients until fully covered.

Set and serve

  1. Chill in the refrigerator until set, then serve.

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

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

  2. Pork + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

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

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pork + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Aspic jelly
Sets around the layers to hold the pie together and keep the meat moist.
Veal
Provides the meaty base of the filling, with a mild, tender texture.
Fresh pork
Adds fat and moisture to the meat mixture, keeping the filling juicy.
Lean ham
Contributes salty, savoury flavour to the meat filling.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm texture and visible structure to the layers when sliced.
Button mushrooms or truffles
Add earthy aroma and savoury depth to the layers.

The step that matters

Chill until fully set. The aspic must cool and gel completely before the pie is cut; if it is sliced too early, the jelly stays runny and the layers collapse and slide apart.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, ham, egg, mushroom, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, ham, egg, mushroom, pepper. 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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