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Partridge Pie

A savory pie made by stuffing partridges with a seasoned force‑meat mixture and baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Partridge 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 the filling

  1. Cut off the legs of the partridges at the second joint.

  2. Finely chop the livers and veal udder.

  3. Add chopped parsley and onions.

  4. Season with salt, Cayenne pepper, mace, and allspice.

  5. Moisten the mixture with yolks of eggs to create a force-meat.

Assemble and bake

  1. Stuff each partridge with the force-meat and wrap in ham fat.

  2. Cover the bottom of a dish with a layer of force-meat.

  3. Place the stuffed partridges in the dish, filling spaces with seasoning.

  4. Pour in ketchup and sprinkle mushroom powder over all.

  5. Cover with a light paste 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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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 is stuffed and baked in the pie.
Yolks of eggs
Bind the chopped mixture into a cohesive force-meat that holds its shape.
Fat of dressed ham
Wraps the birds to add moisture and richness as they bake.
Veal udder
Adds body and moisture to the force-meat filling.
Ketchup
Adds tangy, sweet acidity and depth to the pie's savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Moisten the mixture with yolks of eggs to create a force-meat. The yolks must be mixed in evenly so the chopped livers, udder and herbs bind into a cohesive force-meat. Too little binding lets the stuffing crumble or leak out during baking.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, parsley, onion, pepper, allspice, egg, ham):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, onion, pepper, allspice, egg, ham. 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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