Name: Pigeon Pie
Ingredients: Pigeons; Butter; Rump steak; Forcemeat; Anchovy butter; Bacon fat; Hard-boiled egg yolks

Why it works: Anchovy and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,330 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Pigeon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Pluck, clean, and draw the pigeons, removing the feet, necks, and pinions.
Stew the pigeons until tender, then place them whole in a pie with the cooking liquid.
Alternatively, rub the pigeons with butter, broil slightly, and cut into quarters.
Season the pigeons and lay them breast down on a fine rump steak.
Optionally, place a forcemeat ball or a piece of anchovy butter inside each pigeon, add a thin slice of bacon fat, and strew hard-boiled egg yolks between them.

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.

Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,330 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,697 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).