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Plain Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with beef steak, pigeons, ham, parsley, shallot, and hard‑boiled eggs, baked in pastry.

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

Plain 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. Line a pie dish with pastry.

  3. Place the beef steak at the bottom of the dish.

  4. Cut the steak into 3 or 4 pieces.

Assemble

  1. Arrange the pigeons on top of the steak, breast side up.

  2. Cover each pigeon with a slice of ham.

  3. Sprinkle the pie with salt, pepper, parsley, and shallot.

  4. Fill the corners with slices of hard-boiled eggs.

  5. Pour in the cold water.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the pie with pastry, bringing the pigeons' feet through the center hole.

  2. Decorate as desired.

  3. Bake for 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on size.

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. Parsley + shallottop 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Pastry
Forms a sealed crust that holds in juices and browns in the oven.
Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and rich as it cooks.
Beef steak
Adds savoury meat flavour and moisture to the pie base as it cooks.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour that seasons the pigeon meat.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm, mild texture and body to the filling in the corners.
Shallot
Adds a mild, aromatic onion flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake for 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on size. Pigeon size changes how long the birds need to cook through. Underbaking leaves the meat unsafe and tough, while overbaking dries it out before the crust is done.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, pepper, parsley, shallot, 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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