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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with pigeons, stuffing or mashed potatoes, butter, and a pastry crust, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Clean and truss the pigeons, rubbing them inside and out with salt and pepper.

  2. Rub the inside with butter and fill with stuffing or mashed potatoes.

  3. Sew up the slit and butter the sides of a tin basin or pudding dish.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line the sides with pie paste rolled to ¼ inch thickness and place the pigeons inside.

  2. Cut ¼ cup of sweet butter and place it over the pigeons.

  3. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of salt, ½ teaspoon of pepper, and parsley if desired.

  4. Dredge 1 tablespoon of flour over the pigeons and add water to nearly fill the pie.

  5. Lay skewers across the top and cover with puff pastry, cutting a slit in the middle.

  6. Decorate the edge with leaves, braids, or shells of paste.

Bake and glaze

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1 hour.

  2. When nearly done, brush the top with a beaten egg yolk mixed with a little milk.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Bread + wheattop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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 inside the pie with the seasoning and butter.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the pastry and meat brown as they cook.
Wheat flour
Thickens the cooking liquid that forms around the pigeons into a light gravy.
Puff pastry
Forms the crust, rising and crisping in the oven to enclose the filling.
Egg yolk
Gives the crust a glossy, golden browned finish when brushed on near the end.

The step that matters

Adding the water before covering. Water must nearly fill the dish so the pigeons stay moist and form gravy. Too little liquid can leave the meat dry during the hour-long bake.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, bread, wheat, flour, egg, milk):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, bread, wheat, flour, egg, milk. 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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