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Pigeon Pie

A pie made with beef steak, pigeons, egg yolks, seasonings, veal stock, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Assemble

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the beef steak at the bottom of a pie dish.

  3. Arrange the prepared pigeons in the dish, placing a yolk of hard-boiled egg between each.

  4. Season with mixed salt, pepper, minced parsley, and cayenne pepper.

  5. Add the veal stock.

Bake

  1. Cover with puff pastry, ensuring it is not too thick.

  2. Bake for one hour.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Parsley + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef steak
Forms a savory base layer that cooks down and flavors the surrounding pie filling.
Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and rich as it cooks slowly in the dish.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a creamy, crumbly texture between the layers of meat.
Veal stock
Adds moisture and savory depth, creating a gravy as the pie bakes.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that seals the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Cover with puff pastry, ensuring it is not too thick.. A pastry that is too thick may stay doughy or underbaked inside, because heat must travel through it to reach the filling. Keeping it moderately thin lets it cook through and brown evenly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, egg, pepper, veal):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, pepper, veal. 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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