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A Partridge Pie in a Dish

A pie of partridges baked in puff pastry with stock, herbs, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

A Partridge Pie in a Dish

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 the partridges

  1. Draw in the legs of the partridges.

  2. Season the inside with pepper, salt, chopped parsley, shallot, thyme, and mushrooms.

  3. Singe the partridges.

Assemble the pie

  1. Place beef steaks or slices of veal at the bottom of a dish.

  2. Add the partridges.

  3. Pour in the stock.

  4. Cover the rim of the dish with puff pastry. Seal it with more pastry on top.

  5. Brush the top with beaten egg.

Bake

  1. Bake for over an hour at 350°F (175°C).

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Provide the main meat, which cooks gently in the covered dish with the stock.
Beef steaks or veal slices
Lie beneath the birds, adding savoury meat flavour and moisture to the filling.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the stuffing inside the birds.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky crust that browns in the oven and seals in the juices.
Stock
Adds savoury liquid that moistens the meat and forms the base of the sauce.
Egg
Brushed on top, it promotes even browning and a glossy finish on the pastry.

The step that matters

Seal the pastry around the dish rim. A tight seal traps steam and juices so the birds cook in their own moisture; gaps let liquid escape and the meat can dry out during the long bake.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, parsley, thyme, mushroom, beef, egg):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits less well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, thyme, mushroom, beef, 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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