Name: Woodcock Pie, Raised
Ingredients: 4 woodcock, boned; good veal forcemeat; stock; truffles, sliced; bacon, neatly cut and trimmed; coarse sea salt; pepper

Why it works: Veal and truffle work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 815 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Woodcock Pie, Raised

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 a good veal forcemeat and bone the woodcock.
Cook the bones in stock until a good gravy is obtained; it should jelly when cold.
Pound the gizzards and add them to the forcemeat.
On a board, layer forcemeat, then place the birds, add truffles, and more forcemeat.
Restore the birds to their original shape by folding the skin over.
Prepare a pie mold with raised crust.
Layer forcemeat, two birds, truffles, more forcemeat, the other two birds, and top with forcemeat and truffles again.
Cover with trimmed bacon, finish the pie, and bake at 400°F (200°C).
Add more gravy after baking.
Serve on a napkin, garnished with parsley.

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.

Veal + truffletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together815 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,049 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Truffle + peppertop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,106 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).