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Game Pie

A savory pie made with turkey livers, partridge legs, forcemeat, bread crumbs, spices, and pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Game Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the turkey livers and partridge legs very finely.

  2. Sift the bread crumbs and add them to the chopped meat.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  4. Mix all ingredients together and moisten with water.

Cook and bake

  1. Place the mixture in a pan and cook for 30 minutes, turning often to keep it moist.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a pie dish, cover with pastry, and bake until golden.

Serve

  1. Serve cold.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey livers
Add rich, savoury flavour and a soft, moist texture to the filling.
Partridge legs
Provide meaty body and savoury flavour to the filling.
Forcemeat
Forms the bulk of the filling, giving it a smooth, cohesive texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the chopped meat into a sliceable filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture in a pan. Turning often keeps the chopped meat from drying out or sticking and burning. Moisture from the water and the meat must be held in the mixture, so the filling stays tender rather than tough and dry.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, liver, bread, clove, pepper):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, liver, bread, clove, pepper. 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.

More game pie recipes

English 13Christmas 6Forcemeat 4Raised 4Venison and Hare 4French 3 See all 39 →

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