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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with puff pastry, veal, pigeons, butter, eggs, and veal broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Pigeon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Prepare a fine puff pastry.

  2. Lay a border of pastry around a large dish.

  3. Cover the bottom of the dish with the veal cutlet or tender steak.

  4. Season the veal with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

  5. Prepare the pigeons.

  6. Place a small lump of butter inside each pigeon.

  7. Season the pigeons with black pepper and salt.

Assemble

  1. Lay the pigeons breast down in the dish.

  2. Slice the hard-boiled eggs.

  3. Place the sliced eggs among the pigeons.

  4. Add more butter and some veal broth.

  5. Cover the entire dish with the pastry crust.

Bake

  1. Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) for an hour and a half.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,845 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

Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, gentle baking.
Veal cutlet or tender steak
Forms a meaty base layer that releases juices and flavor into the dish.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a firm, creamy texture among the meat.
Veal broth
Adds moisture and savory flavor that keeps the filling from drying out.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the meat and helps it stay moist during baking.

The step that matters

Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) for an hour and a half.. Low, slow heat lets the meat and connective tissue become tender without drying out. Cooking too hot can toughen the meat and leave the pastry overbrowned before the filling is done.

“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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