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Perigord Pie
This celebrated pie derives its name from Perigord, in France, which is a place celebrated for its truffles. It will be evident from this that truffles enter largely into its composition; and as they are both expensive and scarce, it will generally be found more satisfactory to purchase the pies which are imported than to endeavour to manufacture them at home. Nevertheless, as there may be some who prefer making to buying them, the following recipe is given. Procure some fine truffles, and be particular to smell them, and reject any that are at all musty; one pound will be required for three partridges. Soak them for two or three hours in fresh water, to loosen the earth about them, then rinse them well, and scrub them with a hard brush. Peel them, mince the small and broken ones, and put the rest aside for a little while. Truss, as if for boiling, as many partridges as will be required for the size of the pie. Bone and lard them, and season them with a little salt, pepper, and powdered spice. Make some highly-seasoned forcemeat, according to the directions given for quenelles. Mix with it the minced truffles, and stuff the birds with whole truffles and a portion of the forcemeat. Make a raised crust (see PASTE FOR RAISED PIES). Line it with slices of bacon and forcemeat. Place the birds in it, backs down-most, fill the vacant places with forcemeat, lay a slice of bacon on the top, put on the lid, ornament as fancy dictates, and bake in a well-heated oven.
A raised game pie of the old French type, and one of the more demanding entries in Cassell's. Most of the work is in the boning and the forcemeat; the crust is a structural container as much as it is pastry.
- The hinge: bone the birds properlyPartridges are boned out through the back, leaving the skin intact, then reshaped around forcemeat and whole truffles. If the skin tears the stuffing bleeds into the crust and the slices will not hold together when cut.
- "A well-heated oven"The book gives no temperature. A raised pie of this kind is usually started hot, around 425F for about 20 minutes to set the crust, then dropped to about 350F for the remainder. A pie holding three boned partridges is likely to need something in the region of 1.5 to 2 hours in total; the centre of the forcemeat should reach 165F.
- One pound of trufflesTaken literally this is now a several-hundred-dollar ingredient. The book's own advice is to buy the imported pies rather than make them, on the grounds that truffles are, in its words, both expensive and scarce. A modest quantity of fresh truffle with the mincings extended by good brown mushrooms gets the aroma without the invoice.
- Soaking and scrubbingThe long soak is for gritty field-dug truffles sold unwashed. Modern truffles arrive fairly clean; a brief brush under running water is enough, and long soaking will leach flavour. The instruction to smell and reject anything musty still stands, since a spoiled truffle is unmistakable and will ruin the pie.
- LardingLarding means threading strips of pork back fat through the meat with a larding needle. Barding, wrapping the birds in thin bacon or fatback, achieves nearly the same effect on lean game and is far quicker.
- ForcemeatCassell's quenelle forcemeat is pounded lean meat, panada and fat, seasoned hard. A modern food processor mix of veal or pork with pork fatback, egg and a little cream is the same thing; fry a spoonful and taste it before assembling, since the seasoning cannot be corrected later.
- Raised crustThe hot-water paste is stiff and worked warm, moulded by hand or around a form. Cut a vent in the lid and use a funnel to pour in seasoned aspic or reduced game stock through the hole once the pie has come out and begun to cool, which fills the gaps left by shrinkage.
- Yield and servingThree boned partridges in a raised crust will cut into a good many slices. The recipe gives no serving direction, but raised pies of this type were generally eaten cold: cool completely, chill overnight so any jelly sets, and cut in wedges.
- Sourcing the birdsFarmed partridge is available from game dealers, frozen for much of the year. Wild birds may carry shot; check the breasts while boning.
Perigord, in southwestern France, gave its name to a whole family of truffled preparations, of which the best known is the pâté de Périgueux sold in earthenware or tin. The region's black truffle, Tuber melanosporum, was harvested in quantity through the nineteenth century, and truffled partridge and goose-liver pies were among the luxury foods exported to Britain in sealed tins; Cassell's, for its part, advises the reader to buy the imported article rather than build one at home. The raised-crust technique itself is much older and English as well as French, the pastry serving as a mould and a keeping-vessel in the days before refrigeration, with melted fat or jelly poured in to exclude air.