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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with pigeons, liver, parsley, beef, mushrooms, and puff pastry, baked with brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Pigeon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Draw, truss, and singe the pigeons.

  2. Stuff the pigeons with chopped livers mixed with parsley, salt, pepper, and butter.

Assemble the pie

  1. Cover the bottom of a pie dish with small pieces of beef.

  2. Add a thin layer of chopped parsley and mushrooms seasoned with salt and pepper on top of the beef.

  3. Place the stuffed pigeons on top, adding the yolk of a hard-boiled egg between each.

  4. Pour some brown sauce or gravy over the pigeons.

Bake

  1. Cover with puff pastry and bake for 1.5 hours at 400°F (200°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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 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

Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which cooks through slowly under the pastry.
Beef
Adds savoury, meaty flavour to the base of the pie.
Mushrooms
Add earthy moisture and savoury depth to the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky crust that browns in the oven.
Brown sauce or gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour that keeps the filling from drying out.

The step that matters

Covering and baking the pie. The pigeons must cook through under the pastry without drying out. Gravy keeps the filling moist, and a steady oven heat lets the meat become tender while the pastry bakes crisp and golden.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pepper, butter, beef, mushroom, sauce, egg):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, butter, beef, mushroom, sauce, 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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