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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with pigeons, ham, onions, mace, parsley, bay leaves, sherry, stock, beef steaks, egg yolks, and coulis.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. 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.

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Prepare 6 pigeons by drawing in the legs, singeing them, and filling with force-meat.

  2. Place a small raw truffle in each pigeon.

Make the stock

  1. In a stewpan, combine the necks, gizzards, ham, onions, mace, parsley, bay leaves, sherry, and stock.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer beef steaks at the bottom of a pie dish and place the pigeons on top.

  2. Cover the pie and decorate it.

  3. Let it rest overnight without baking.

  4. Bake the pie at 400°F (200°C) for 2 hours.

  5. Remove the top and add the hard-boiled egg yolks.

  6. Fill with coulis.

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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Ham + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Ham + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 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 main meat, which becomes tender during the long slow bake.
Beef steaks
Form a base layer that adds savoury meaty flavour and moisture to the pie.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a creamy texture to the filling.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Bake the pie at 400°F (200°C) for 2 hours. Pigeon is a lean meat that dries out if overcooked, while the beef and stock need long heat to become tender and flavourful. Keeping the oven steady and the cover in place helps the pie cook evenly and stay moist.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, parsley, sherry, beef, 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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