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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie filled with pigeon, steak, and herbs, topped with pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pigeon Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the sauce

  1. Fry the pigeon pieces in clarified dripping until browned, then set aside to cool.

  2. In the same dripping, fry the sliced onion until lightly browned.

  3. Stir in the tied herbs, tarragon vinegar, and season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  4. Let the sauce boil, then simmer for 15 minutes.

  5. Color the sauce with browning and strain into a basin.

Assemble and bake

  1. Dust the steak pieces with pepper and salt, then roll them up.

  2. Place the meat rolls and pigeon pieces in a pie dish, sprinkle with chopped parsley and minced bacon.

  3. Fill the dish with the prepared sauce, cover tightly, and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour.

  4. Once cooled, add pieces of hard-boiled egg and cover with pastry, leaving a small opening in the center.

  5. Bake the pie in a 350°F (175°C) oven, brushing the crust with beaten egg.

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. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Tarragon + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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, browned first to build a rich savory flavor.
Rump steak
Adds more meat, rolled and cooked slowly so it becomes tender in the sauce.
Clarified dripping
Fat that browns the pigeon and onion, carrying flavor into the sauce.
Onion
Browned in the fat to add sweetness and savory depth to the sauce.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and texture to the filling inside the pie.

The step that matters

Let the cooked filling cool before adding the pastry. Adding hot filling under pastry can melt the fat and make the crust soggy or greasy. Cooling lets the crust bake crisp on top.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, tarragon, vinegar, pepper, nutmeg, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, tarragon, vinegar, pepper, nutmeg, 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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