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Bird-pie

A savory pie made with stuffed doves, oysters, and a spiced gravy, baked in pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bird-pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stuffing and gravy

  1. Make a stuffing with bread and onions and stuff each dove.

  2. In a stew-pan, heat lard and flour until browned.

  3. Add finely chopped onion and fry until soft.

  4. Add the stuffed doves and fry for a while.

  5. Pour in water and boil until the doves are cooked through.

  6. Remove the doves and add oysters and oyster water to the gravy.

  7. Stir in butter, salt, black pepper, allspice, and nutmeg.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a baking dish with pastry, place the doves and gravy inside, and cover with more pastry.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Doves
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender as it simmers in the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and, when browned with lard, adds color and a toasted flavor.
Lard
Fat for frying that carries flavor and helps brown the flour.
Oysters
Add a briny, savory flavor and body to the gravy.
Bread
Soaks up moisture and fat in the stuffing, keeping the filling soft.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth finish to the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the lard and flour. Cooking the flour in fat until browned develops flavor and color, but if it burns the gravy turns bitter. Stir constantly and watch closely.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, oyster, butter, pepper, allspice, nutmeg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, oyster, butter, pepper, allspice, nutmeg. 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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