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Pheasant Pie

A savory pie made from pheasants stuffed with forcemeat and baked with bacon and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pheasant Pie

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

  1. Prepare the pheasants by removing the heads and carefully boning them.

  2. Make a forcemeat by mixing grated bread, pounded veal, fat bacon, minced beef suet, and grated ham.

  3. Season the forcemeat with truffles, nutmeg, mace, pepper, salt, and garlic, then bind with beaten egg yolks.

  4. Stuff part of the forcemeat inside the pheasants and fry them for a few minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the pheasants in a deep dish lined with fat bacon and some forcemeat at the bottom.

  2. Add brandy, more forcemeat, and cover with slices of fat bacon.

  3. If using a dish, cover with coarse paste and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 4 to 5 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. When ready to serve, remove the coarse paste and cover with rich puff paste.

  2. Bake until the puff paste is golden and serve.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Pheasant + beeftop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Veal + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together815 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasants
Form the main body of the pie and supply the meat that the forcemeat surrounds.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together when sliced and baked.
Beef suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the forcemeat moist during long baking.
Bread
Soaks up fat and moisture, giving the forcemeat a softer, lighter body.
Bacon
Lines and covers the birds, adding fat, moisture and savoury flavour.
Veal
Adds body and a mild, tender texture to the forcemeat.

The step that matters

Long, low baking under the coarse paste. Baking at a low temperature for hours lets the connective tissue in the pheasant break down slowly, keeping the meat tender instead of dry. The coarse paste seals in moisture while it cooks.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, bread, veal, beef, ham, truffle, nutmeg):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, bread, veal, beef, ham, truffle, nutmeg. 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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