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Pigeon Pie

A baked pie with pigeons, stuffing or mashed potatoes, topped with butter, salt, pepper, parsley, and puff pastry.

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 pastry rolled to ¼ inch thick.

  2. Place the pigeons in the dish and top with sweet butter, salt, pepper, and parsley.

  3. Dredge flour over the pigeons and add water to nearly fill the pie.

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

  5. Decorate the edge with pastry leaves or braids.

Bake and finish

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

  2. Brush the top with a mixture of beaten egg yolk and milk before finishing.

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 meat that cooks slowly within the pie to become tender and rich.
Wheat flour
Dusted over the pigeons to thicken the juices into a gravy as the pie bakes.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp crust that rises and browns over the filling.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the crust to promote deep golden browning and a glossy finish.
Sweet butter
Adds richness and moisture, melting over the birds to enrich the juices.

The step that matters

Covering and sealing the pie before baking. The pastry must be sealed well around the rim and vented with a slit so steam can escape. Trapped steam can lift or soften the crust, while a gap lets the juices leak out and dry the filling.

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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