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Grouse Pie

A savory pie filled with grouse, steak, bacon, eggs, and stock, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Grouse Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the grouse into neat joints and remove the lower parts of the back to avoid bitterness.

  2. Slice the steak into small thin pieces.

  3. Slice the bacon into narrow strips.

  4. Slice the hard-boiled eggs into sections.

Layer and cover

  1. Line the bottom of a pie dish with slices of steak.

  2. Layer the pie dish with slices of grouse.

  3. Layer the pie dish with slices of bacon.

  4. Layer the pie dish with slices of egg.

  5. Season each layer with salt and pepper.

  6. Repeat the layering until all ingredients are used.

  7. Add stock to fill the dish halfway.

  8. Cover the pie with puff pastry.

  9. Brush the pie with egg yolk when it is about halfway baked.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the pie for 30 minutes at 400 °F (200 °C) to rise the pastry.

  2. Reduce the temperature to 300 °F (150 °C) and bake for an additional 1 hour.

  3. Simmer the necks and trimmings of the grouse in the remaining stock.

  4. Strain the stock.

  5. Season the stock.

  6. Pour the stock into the pie before serving.

Extra flavouring

  1. Add finely chopped parsley, shallot, and mushroom to the meat for extra flavor.

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. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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
Provides the main meat and flavour of the filling.
Rump steak
Adds richer, beefy meat that becomes tender during the long bake.
Streaky bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that moistens the lean meats as they cook.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and a mild, rich texture to the layered filling.
Stock
Adds moisture and savoury depth, keeping the filling juicy as it bakes.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that rises and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake at high heat, then lower it. The first hot bake sets and lifts the puff pastry before the filling is fully cooked. Dropping the heat then cooks the meat through gently, so the pastry browns without burning and the filling does not dry out.

“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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