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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with pigeon quarters, rump steak, boiled eggs, flour, butter, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Pigeon Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Season the pigeons and steak with salt and pepper.

  3. Layer the steak in a 10‑inch pie dish, place the pigeons on top, and add the yolks of the boiled eggs evenly.

  4. Pour in the gravy or water.

  5. Rub the edge of the dish with butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the dish with strips of pastry ¼ inch thick, moisten with cold water, and cover with more pastry.

  2. Press the edges to seal, trim with a knife, and notch at 1‑inch intervals.

  3. Make a hole in the center for steam to escape and decorate as desired.

  4. Bake for 2 hours and 15 minutes.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Pigeons
Provide the main meat and rich flavour that defines the pie.
Rump steak
Adds meaty body and savoury flavour that blends into the gravy.
Eggs
Boiled yolks enrich the filling and add richness and body.
All-purpose flour
Forms the pastry structure that holds the pie together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the pastry and the dish edge.

The step that matters

Sealing the pastry edges. A tight seal keeps juices and steam inside the pie while it bakes, so the filling cooks through and stays moist rather than leaking out.

“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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