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Pigeon Pie, in a Disk

A savory pie made with pigeons, beefsteaks, mushrooms, shallots, parsley, egg yolks, and puff pastry, baked and topped with stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley 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 ↓

Pigeon Pie, in a Disk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Draw in the legs of the pigeons and season with pepper, salt, shallots, mushrooms, and parsley.

  2. Lay beefsteaks at the bottom of a dish and add a little stock between each layer.

  3. Place the seasoned pigeons on top of the beefsteaks and add the hard-boiled egg yolks.

Bake and finish

  1. Cover the pie with puff pastry and bake for 1 hour.

  2. Mix half a pint of good stock and coulis.

  3. Pour the mixture over the pie.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 during the long baking.
Beefsteaks
Add meaty body and flavour to the base layer as they cook in the stock.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a soft, crumbly texture to the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky crust that browns in the oven.
Stock
Adds moisture and savoury depth so the filling stays juicy during baking.

The step that matters

Covering and baking the pie. The pastry must seal the dish well so steam and juices stay inside, keeping the pigeon and beef moist. The pastry needs enough oven heat to puff and brown properly, so the crust does not turn out pale or soggy.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

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