Name: A Raised Pie with Pigeons
Ingredients: 6 pigeons; pepper; coarse sea salt; chopped mushrooms; parsley; shallot; beef steaks; 8 hard-boiled eggs; ragout of sweetbreads

Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

A Raised Pie with Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Prepare a pie crust that can hold six pigeons.
Season the pigeons inside and at the crop with pepper, coarse sea salt, chopped mushrooms, parsley, and shallot.
Place beef steaks at the bottom of the pie, then add the pigeons.

Assemble and bake

Cover the pie and decorate it as desired.
Once baked, cut the top off.
Fill the pie with eight hard-boiled eggs and a ragout of sweetbreads.
Replace the top.
Serve on a napkin.

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.

Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Mushroom + beeftop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,232 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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 and rich during the long baking inside the crust.
Beef steaks: Lie under the birds, adding meaty flavour and moisture to the pie's base.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add firm, sliceable texture and a mild richness to the filling.
Sweetbreads: Contribute a soft, creamy texture and rich flavour to the ragout.
Mushrooms: Add earthy aroma and moisture to the seasoning around the pigeons.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, mushroom, parsley, beef, egg):

Carrotfits about as well
Shallotthe original
Capsicumfits about as well
Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mushroom, parsley, 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.