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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie with steak, pigeons, ham, eggs, and stock, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,475 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. 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 pie

  1. Cut the steak into 3-inch square pieces and line the bottom of a pie dish, seasoning with pepper and salt.

  2. Clean the pigeons, rub them with pepper and salt inside and out, and place more than ½ oz of butter inside each.

  3. Lay the pigeons on the steak and place a piece of ham on each.

  4. Add the boiled and sliced eggs, then half-fill the dish with stock.

Top and bake

  1. Place a border of puff pastry around the edge, cover the pie, and decorate as desired.

  2. Clean three pigeon feet and place them in a hole made in the crust at the top.

  3. Brush the crust with egg yolk and bake in a preheated oven at 400 °F (200 °C) for about 1¼ hours.

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. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Forms the savoury base of the filling and becomes tender during the long bake.
Pigeons
Provide the main meat flavour, richer and darker than the steak.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the meat moist as it cooks.
Eggs
Boiled and sliced, they add body and a rich flavour to the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp crust that browns in the oven and seals the pie.

The step that matters

Brush the crust with egg yolk and bake. Egg yolk gives the pastry an even golden browning. Bake at the stated heat for the full time so the meat becomes tender and the pastry cooks through.

“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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