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Plaix Pigeon Pie

A pastry pie filled with beef, pigeons, ham, herbs, and hard‑boiled eggs, baked with water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Plaix Pigeon Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line a pie dish with the pastry.

  3. Place the beef steak at the bottom of the dish.

Assemble

  1. Arrange the pigeons on top of the steak, breast side up, and cover each with a slice of ham.

  2. Sprinkle the pigeons with salt, pepper, parsley, and shallot.

  3. Fill the corners with slices of hard-boiled eggs.

  4. Pour in the cold water and cover with pastry, bringing the pigeons' feet through the center hole.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on the size of the pigeons.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 flavours the pie and its juices as it cooks.
Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow oven baking under pastry.
Pastry
Encloses the filling and forms a crisp, browned crust during baking.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and firm texture to the filling as they sit among the meat.
Ham
Adds salty, savory flavour over the pigeons as they cook.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, pepper, parsley, shallot, egg. 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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