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Game, Perigord Pie
This somewhat celebrated pie, composed of partridges and truffles, derives its name from Perigord, a place where truffles are very abundant. To make it, first line the crust of a raised pie with fat bacon; spread on it a forcemeat made by mincing and pounding liver and seasoning in the following proportions:--Half a pound of liver (the partridge's liver and a little calf's liver may be used), half a pound of fat bacon, half a pound of lean ham, two shallots, four ounces of seasoning spices, one or two truffles, and a little pepper and salt. Stuff the partridges with this forcemeat and some truffles; place them in the crust, back downwards. Fill up the vacant places with forcemeat and bacon, put a slice of bacon on the top, cover with pastry, and bake in a moderate oven. When the pie is baked nearly enough, fill it up with some gravy, made by stewing the trimmings with a little isinglass. Time, four hours to bake. Probable cost, uncertain. Sufficient for twelve persons.
A raised game pie of the grand Victorian kind: hot-water crust, a liver forcemeat, whole birds and truffles, baked long and then filled with jellied gravy. Most of the work is in the assembly, and two of the quantities in the original need interpretation before you start.
- "Four ounces of seasoning spices"This cannot be taken literally — four ounces of ground spice against a pound and a half of meat would be inedible. Period cookery books sold and referred to a compound "seasoning" of salt, pepper, mace, nutmeg and herbs, and even then four ounces reads like a printer's error for four drachms or a couple of teaspoons. Season the forcemeat to taste, frying a spoonful to check it before the pie is built.
- The number of birdsThe recipe never says. For twelve people in a raised crust roughly 8 inches across, four to six dressed partridges (about 10-12 oz each) is the working figure, boned or at least breast-boned so they pack closely and carve without wrestling.
- A moderate oven, but not for four hours"Moderate" in books of this period is usually rendered as somewhere around 325-350F, though the book itself gives no figure. Start at 400F for 20-30 minutes to set the hot-water crust, then drop to 325-350F and cover the top loosely with foil, or the pastry will be black long before the centre is done. Four hours is a Victorian estimate for a coal range and a very full pie; go by temperature.
- Cook to temperature, not the clockThe forcemeat contains raw liver and pork fat. Take the centre of the pie to 165F on a probe — usually two to three hours for a pie of this size, not four.
- IsinglassIsinglass is a setting agent from fish swim bladders, now sold mainly to brewers. Use leaf or powdered gelatine: about 1/2 oz per pint of strained game stock gives a jelly that sets firm but melts on the tongue. Leaf gelatine varies considerably in weight per sheet, so weigh it rather than counting leaves.
- Filling the pieCut a vent hole in the top crust before baking. When the pie comes out and has stopped bubbling but is still warm, pour the warm gelatine-fortified gravy through the hole in stages, letting it soak down. Cold pie plus hot jelly, or hot pie plus a rush of liquid, both end with the filling floating in a gap.
- TrufflesFresh Périgord black truffle is a winter luxury and priced accordingly; jarred or tinned black truffle, and its juice added to the gravy, is the practical substitute. Truffle oil is a different flavour altogether and does not survive a three-hour bake.
- Shot and baconWild partridges carry lead shot — check the cavities and flesh before stuffing. The "fat bacon" lining should be unsmoked, thinly cut back fat or streaky; modern smoked bacon will dominate the truffle.
- ServingLike all raised pies of this type it is better cold, the day after, so the jelly has set and the seasoning has settled. Sufficient for twelve as a course, with pickles and bread.
Périgord, in south-western France, gave its name to a whole family of luxury dishes built on the black truffle that grows among its oaks — à la Périgueux on a menu still means truffle. Truffled partridge and truffled goose-liver pies were exported from the region in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as prestige goods, often potted or crusted precisely because they had to travel, and English cooks copied them from French models. Cassell's includes it under game as a set-piece rather than a weekday dish: the entry's admission that the "probable cost" is "uncertain" is unusually candid for a book that prices almost everything, and tells you plainly that partridges and truffles together put this beyond the household budgets the dictionary otherwise catered to. The raised crust — flour and hot lard or water paste, moulded by hand and stiff enough to stand alone — is the older English technique, here pressed into service for a French filling.<br><br>