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Partridge Pie

A pie filled with partridges stewed in gravy, forcemeat, eggs, and mushroom ketchup, 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: Bread and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Partridge 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.

Prepare the birds

  1. Place the veal cutlet in the bottom of a deep dish.

  2. Fill the partridges with forcemeat made of minced veal, bread crumbs, and salt.

  3. Stew the partridges in good gravy for a short time.

Assemble the pie

  1. Put the birds in the dish with their breasts downwards and pour the stewing gravy over them.

  2. Fill the dish with forcemeat balls and chopped hard boiled eggs.

  3. Add mushroom ketchup just before covering with the pastry.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

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. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Mushroom + ketchuptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Form the main meat of the pie, becoming tender as they stew in gravy.
Veal cutlet
Lines the dish and adds rich meaty flavour to the gravy below the birds.
Bread crumbs
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together and stays moist when cooked.
Hard boiled eggs
Add body and a firm, sliced texture to the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky crust that browns in the hot oven.

The step that matters

Stew the partridges briefly before assembling. Stewing only for a short time partly cooks the birds and sets their flavour without drying them out. Overcooking now leaves them tough, since they will finish cooking in the oven under the pastry.

“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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