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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with puff pastry, veal, pigeons, eggs, butter, and veal broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pigeon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Make a fine puff pastry and lay a border around a large dish.

  2. Cover the bottom with a veal cutlet or tender steak, and season with coarse sea salt, cayenne pepper, and mace.

  3. Prepare as many pigeons as can fit in one layer, placing a small lump of butter inside each and seasoning with black pepper and salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Lay the pigeons breast down in the dish, and slice the hard boiled eggs, laying them in with the birds.

  2. Add more butter and some veal broth, then cover the whole with crust.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for an hour and a half.

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 + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Veal cutlet or tender steak
Provides meaty flavour and savoury body to the bottom layer of the pie.
Pigeons
Serve as the main meat, cooking gently in the oven to become tender.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the meat juicy as it bakes.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and a firm, creamy texture to the filling.
Veal broth
Adds moisture and savoury depth, turning into juices within the pie.

The step that matters

Covering the whole with crust. The crust must seal the dish well so steam and juices stay inside, keeping the meat moist and the pastry evenly cooked.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, butter, 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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