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Pigeon Pie

A baked pie made with pigeons, butter, salt, pepper, parsley, flour, water, and 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

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 the pigeons

  1. Clean the pigeons, truss them, and stuff them like chicken, then sew up the openings.

  2. Rub the pigeons with butter.

Assemble the pie

  1. Place them in a buttered deep earthen pan lined with thick pastry.

  2. Add 1 ounce of butter cut into bits over the pigeons.

  3. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, parsley, and flour.

  4. Add water.

  5. Cover with thick pastry.

  6. Cut a small round in the center of the pastry and braid pastry around the center.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 to 1.5 hours.

  2. Serve with currant jelly.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tame pigeons
Provide the main meat, which cooks through slowly inside the pastry.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the pigeon skin brown in the oven.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy around the birds.
Thick pastry
Encloses the pigeons so they steam in their own juices as they bake.

The step that matters

Sealing the pastry lid and cutting the vent. The enclosed pan traps steam, which cooks the birds gently and keeps them moist. A sealed lid with a central vent lets steam escape safely so the pastry does not burst or turn soggy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Turmericfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, flour. 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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