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Partridge Pie

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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

Prepare the partridges

  1. Pick and singe the partridges.

  2. Cut off the legs at the knee.

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

Assemble and bake

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

  2. Add the seasoned partridges.

  3. Pour in the broth.

  4. Cover the dish with puff pastry.

  5. Brush the pastry with beaten egg.

  6. Bake.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Ham + mushroomtop 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
Form the main body of the pie as the meat being cooked.
Veal steak
Lies beneath the birds, adding meaty richness to the juices in the dish.
Ham slice
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the meat and cooking liquid below the birds.
Broth
Provides moisture so the meat steams gently under the pastry rather than drying.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky crust that seals the dish and browns in the oven.
Egg
Brushed on the pastry, it promotes an even golden browning.

The step that matters

Bake. The pastry is sealed over the dish, so the birds cook partly by steam under the crust. Too little liquid or a low oven can leave the meat dry or the pastry pale and soggy, so the broth and oven heat must be sufficient.

Swap the parsley

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