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Partridge Pie

A pie made with partridges, gravy, shallots, allspice, egg yolks, and catsup, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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 partridges

  1. Pluck and draw the partridges.

  2. Carve three of them into six pieces each: wings, legs, breast, neck, head, and back.

  3. Keep one partridge whole and trussed.

  4. Season the pieces with pepper, salt, and ground mace, and place them in a deep dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Stuff the whole partridge and place it in the center of the dish, breast side up.

  2. Pour the cold beef gravy over the game, adding the roasted shallots, allspice, egg yolks, and catsup.

  3. Cover the dish with puff pastry and bake in a moderately heated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Shallot + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Form the main meat of the pie, providing the savoury filling.
Beef gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth so the filling stays juicy under the pastry.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the filling, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Roasted shallots
Add mellow sweetness and aroma to the gravy.
Catsup
Contributes acidity and sweet-tangy flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Covering and baking the pie. The puff pastry must cover the dish fully and bake until golden. Puff pastry rises and browns through dry heat, so an incomplete seal or underbaking leaves the pastry soggy and the filling insufficiently cooked.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, beef, shallot, corn, allspice, 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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