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A Partridge Pie in a Dish

A pie made with partridges, seasoned with salt, parsley, shallot, mushrooms, and stock, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. 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

  1. Draw in the legs of the partridges and season the inside with salt, parsley, shallot, and mushrooms.

  2. Singe the partridges and place beef steaks or veal slices at the bottom of a dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the partridges and pour in the stock.

  2. Cover the rim of the dish with puff pastry and seal it with more pastry on top.

  3. Brush the top with beaten egg and bake for 1 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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,103 recipes

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

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 becomes tender and juicy during the long, covered bake.
Puff pastry
Forms a sealed crust that traps steam and browns in the oven.
Egg
Brushed on top, it promotes even browning and a glossy finish on the pastry.
Stock
Adds moisture and savoury flavour that gently cooks the meat under the pastry.
Beef steaks or veal
Lies beneath the birds, adding meaty flavour and richness to the juices.

The step that matters

Sealing the pastry. A tight seal keeps steam inside the dish, so the birds cook gently in their own juices and stock. A gap lets steam escape, drying the meat and leaving the pastry underbaked.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, 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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