Skip to main content
Main

Pigeon Pie

A savory pie filled with pigeons, liver, parsley, mushrooms, and gravy, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

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 a yolk of hard-boiled egg between each.

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

  5. 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 and becomes tender under the pastry.
Chopped livers
Add rich, deep flavour and a soft texture to the stuffing.
Beef
Adds savoury, meaty body to the base of the pie.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that seals in the filling as it bakes.
Brown sauce or gravy
Keeps the filling moist and adds savoury depth during baking.

The step that matters

Covering and baking with pastry. The pastry must seal the dish so steam stays inside and the pigeons cook through at the full 1.5 hours at 400°F. Opening or underbaking leaves the meat dry or raw near the bone.

Swap the parsley

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

  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, egg, sauce. 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.

More pigeon pie recipes

Filling 3 See all 224 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes