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Dessert

Grouse Pie

A savory pie filled with grouse, steak, and gravy, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Grouse Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the gravy and filling

  1. Make ½ pint of gravy with the stock, adding the onion, herbs, mace, and cayenne pepper.

  2. When the onion is tender, strain the gravy and add the Worcestershire sauce.

  3. Cut the steak into small pieces and place them at the bottom of a pie dish.

  4. Add the grouse, season with cayenne and salt, and pour in the gravy.

Assemble and bake

  1. Put a rim of puff pastry around the edge of the dish.

  2. Cover the pie with the crust, glaze, and ornament.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the pastry is done.

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 + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Sherry + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Pepper + sherrytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Sauce + sherrytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Grouse breasts
Provide the main meat, whose flavour and texture form the centre of the pie.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, layered crust that rises and crisps in the oven.
Tinned steak
Adds savoury meat pieces that soften in the gravy and enrich the filling.
Liebig company stock
Forms the base of the gravy, adding moisture and savoury depth.
Egg
Glazes the crust, promoting browning and a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the pastry is done. Puff pastry needs a hot oven so the butter in its layers releases steam quickly, lifting the layers and setting a crisp crust. Underbaked pastry stays soggy and pale.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, pepper, sherry, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, pepper, sherry, 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.

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