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Rook Pie

A pie made with young rooks, seasoned with pepper and salt, baked over a steak with water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Rook Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Remove the backbone from the rooks and season them with pepper and salt.

  2. Place the steak at the bottom of a pie dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Lay the rooks on top of the steak, breast side down.

  2. Add ½ cup of water to the dish and close the pie.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours.

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

What each ingredient does

Rooks
Form the main meat, which becomes tender through the long, covered baking.
Steak
Adds meaty flavour and moisture as it cooks beneath the birds.

The step that matters

Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours. A long, covered bake lets the connective tissue in the meat break down and turn tender. Keeping the pie closed traps steam so the meat stays moist rather than drying 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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