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Cold Raised Pies

A pie baked with game, bacon, truffles, and aspic, served cold after cooling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Truffle and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Cold Raised Pies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the birds

  1. Boil and trim the York ham and tongues.

  2. Season and garnish the game and poultry with bacon, tongue, and truffles.

  3. Sew the seasoned game and poultry with twine.

  4. Line two round or oval braising pans with bacon.

  5. Arrange the birds neatly in the pans.

  6. Cover the birds with bacon and buttered paper.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake the pans at 300°F (150°C) for about 4 hours.

  2. Allow the pies to cool after baking.

Make the aspic and hot-water paste

  1. Prepare aspic-jelly using the carcasses of the game, calves' feet, and vegetables.

  2. Clarify the aspic-jelly.

  3. Reduce half of the aspic-jelly before pouring it into the pie.

  4. Make hot-water-paste.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line the inside of the pie with bacon and seasoned force-meat.

  2. Place the goose at the bottom.

  3. Surround the goose with small birds.

  4. Fill cavities with force-meat.

  5. Add turkey and pheasants with slices of boiled ham in between.

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. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Ham + truffletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together516 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Widgeons
Provide the main game meat that forms the centre of the pie.
York ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a firm, sliceable texture to the filling.
Tongues
Contribute rich flavour and a tender, sliceable meat layer.
Fat bacon
Bastes the birds with fat as they cook, keeping the meat moist and adding savoury flavour.
Calves' feet
Their collagen sets into a firm jelly that makes the aspic.
Hot-water-paste
Forms a sturdy, sealed crust that holds the filling and its juices during baking.

The step that matters

Clarify the aspic-jelly. Aspic must be clear and firmly set. Cloudiness from unskimmed proteins or fat spoils the look, and it only sets properly when the gelatine from the calves' feet is well extracted and cooled.

“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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