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Pigeon or Lark Pie

A savory pie filled with pigeons, rump steak, egg yolks, and pastry, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pigeon or Lark 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. Truss the pigeons as for stewing and season with pepper and salt.

  2. Fill the pigeons with veal stuffing or finely chopped parsley mixed with butter, pepper, and salt.

  3. Cut the rump steak into pieces, season, and place it at the bottom of a deep dish.

  4. Lay the pigeons on top of the steak, add the hard-boiled egg yolks, and pour in the broth or water.

Top and bake

  1. Wet the edge of the dish and cover with puff pastry, sealing it well.

  2. Brush the top with egg yolk and decorate with pastry leaves and pigeon feet.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Before serving, make a small opening in the top and pour in hot gravy.

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

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

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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, covered baking.
Rump steak
Adds meaty flavour and body to the juices that collect beneath the pastry.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the parsley stuffing inside the pigeons.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the filling, giving it a creamy, smooth texture.
Puff pastry (in the method)
Forms a crisp, flaky crust that seals in steam and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Sealing the pastry edge. A tight seal keeps steam and juices inside the dish. If it leaks, the filling dries out and the liquid is lost, so the meat cooks less gently.

“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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