Name: Pigeon Pie
Ingredients: pigeons; butter; pepper; coarse sea salt; beef or veal; gravy or water; hard-boiled eggs (optional)

Why it works: Pepper and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. 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 birds

Pick and clean the pigeons thoroughly.
Cut off the heads and truss the birds by turning the wings on the back, cutting off the feet, and drawing the skin of the belly over the legs.
Place a bit of butter, a little pepper, and coarse sea salt inside each bird.

Assemble the pie

Layer beef or veal in the bottom of a pie dish.
Lay the trussed pigeons on the meat, breasts upwards, with the gizzards and livers around them.
Optionally, add a few whole hard-boiled eggs.
Add a little gravy or water.
Cover the pie with a crust, making a hole in the center for the legs.
Place the legs of the pigeons with the feet upwards in the hole.

Bake

Bake at 400°F (200°C) for one hour.

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.

Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,847 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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 cooks in the pie along with the surrounding beef or veal.
Butter: Adds fat inside each bird, keeping the meat moist and rich as it cooks.
Beef or veal: Layered under the birds to add savory meat flavor and moisture to the pie.
Hard-boiled eggs: Optional addition that adds richness and a firm, sliceable texture to the filling.

“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.