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Pigeon Pie

Pigeon pie is a stuffed pigeon cooked in a stew pan with butter, flour, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pigeon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Pick the birds.

  2. Clean the birds like chickens.

  3. Make force meat by mixing cold veal, grated ham, nutmeg, mace, and a small amount of cloves.

  4. Season the inside of the birds with pepper and salt.

  5. Fill the birds with the force meat.

  6. Rub the outside of the birds with pepper and salt.

  7. Tie the legs with thread.

Stew and serve

  1. Place the birds in a stew pan with a piece of butter on each and a little flour.

  2. Add a small amount of water to the bottom of the pan to prevent burning.

  3. Cover the pan tightly.

  4. Cook until the birds are tender.

  5. Remove the birds.

  6. Cut off the threads.

  7. If the gravy is too thin, add butter rolled in flour.

  8. Let it boil.

  9. Pour it over the birds before serving hot.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melts into the pan juices, adding richness and helping form a silky gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving it body.
Cold veal
Adds meaty body and moisture to the force meat stuffing.
Grated ham
Contributes savoury, salty flavour to the force meat stuffing.

The step that matters

Cover the pan tightly. A tight lid traps steam so the birds cook gently and stay moist, while the small amount of water at the bottom keeps the pan from scorching.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, nutmeg, clove, pepper, butter, 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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