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Hot Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with boned pigeons, onions, carrots, celery, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Hot Pigeon Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Brown the boned pigeons in butter.

  2. Add sliced onions, carrots, celery, salt, and pepper to the pot and stew.

  3. Remove the pigeons and stir in flour until smooth.

  4. Gradually add hot water, then return the pigeons to the pot.

  5. Cook slowly until tender.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and cover with puff pastry.

  2. Cut slits in the center of the pastry for steam to escape.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 25 minutes.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 becomes tender through slow cooking in the filling.
Butter
Adds fat and helps brown the pigeons, building savory flavor.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, stable sauce.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, crisp top crust that browns in the oven.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften during stewing.

The step that matters

Stir in flour until smooth before adding the hot water. Flour clumps if it meets liquid unevenly. Stirring it smooth first and adding hot water gradually lets starch hydrate evenly, giving a lump-free sauce that thickens properly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, celery, pepper, flour):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, celery, pepper, flour. 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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