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Dessert

Game Pie

A savory pie filled with pheasant, partridge, bacon or ham, mushrooms, forcemeat, truffle, and gravy, baked in a raised crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Game Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crust

  1. Make a raised crust with ½ lb of flour, ½ lb of butter, and enough hot water to form a stiff paste.

  2. Mould the paste into an oval shape or line a pie dish, reserving some for the lid.

  3. Bake the crust until light brown, glazing both the crust and lid with beaten egg.

Make the filling

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in the stock, then add the game (boned), ham (thinly sliced), truffle (finely chopped), and mushrooms.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper and salt.

  3. Fill the pie with layers of game, ham, hard-boiled eggs (sliced), and forcemeat.

  4. Pour in the gravy and place the lid on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Return the pie to the oven until the crust is a dark brown.

  2. Let the pie cool 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. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

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

  2. Veal + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together815 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the stock so it firms into a sliceable jelly when the pie cools.
Butter (in the method)
Adds richness and helps make the crust tender and flaky.
Flour (in the method)
Forms the structure of the raised crust that holds the filling.
Cooked veal forcemeat
Adds moisture and a dense, savoury texture between the layers of meat.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the filling.
Strong stock
Provides savoury liquid that sets with the gelatine to form the jelly.

The step that matters

Bake the crust until light brown, glazing with beaten egg. A stiff hot-water paste must be baked fully so it holds its shape and the sides do not slump. Egg glaze browns the surface and gives a glossy finish.

“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.

More game pie recipes

English 13Christmas 6Forcemeat 4Raised 4Venison and Hare 4French 3 See all 39 →

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