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Partridge Pie

A savory pie made with partridges, veal steak, ham, mushrooms, parsley, and broth, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. 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 partridges

  1. Prepare the partridges by picking and singeing them.

  2. Cut off the legs at the knee.

  3. Season the partridges with salt, pepper, parsley, and mushrooms.

Assemble the pie

  1. Place the veal steak and ham slice at the bottom of a pie dish.

  2. Add the seasoned partridges and pour in the broth.

  3. Cover the dish with puff pastry, sealing the edges.

  4. Brush the top with beaten egg.

Bake

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

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mushroom + vealtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful as it braises in the broth.
Veal steak
Adds rich meaty flavour and body to the juices collecting beneath the pastry.
Ham slice
Contributes salty, savoury depth to the meat and broth.
Broth
Supplies moisture that gently cooks the meat and forms the sauce inside the pie.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the filling as they cook.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp crust that puffs and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges of the pastry. A tight seal keeps steam and juices inside the pie, so the filling cooks through and the broth stays flavourful rather than leaking out and drying the meat.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits less well

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