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Pigeon Pie

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub the pigeons inside and out with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Place a bit of butter and chopped parsley mixed with the livers inside each pigeon.

  3. Lay a beef steak at the bottom of a pie dish and place the pigeons on top.

  4. Add a hard boiled egg between every two pigeons.

  5. Pour in ½ cup of water and place a bit of ham on each pigeon if available.

  6. Season the gizzards and two wing joints, placing them in the center of the pie.

  7. Make a hole in the crust and place three cleaned feet on top to identify 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Beef + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Ham + chickentop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, beef, egg, ham, chicken):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, beef, egg, ham, chicken. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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