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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with veal cutlet, young pigeons, butter, egg yolks, and spices, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pigeon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Lay a border of fine puff paste around a large dish.

Layer the filling

  1. Cover the bottom with the veal cutlet or steak, seasoned with salt, cayenne, and nutmeg or mace.

  2. Prepare enough young pigeons for one layer in the dish, placing a slice or ball of butter in each, seasoned with cayenne and mace.

  3. Lay the pigeons in the dish with their breasts downwards.

  4. Add the yolks of hard-boiled eggs between and over the pigeons, and stick plenty of butter on top.

  5. Season the entire dish well with salt and spices.

  6. Pour in some cold water or veal broth for gravy.

Cover and bake

  1. Roll out the cover to ¾ inch thick, secure it around the edge, and ornament it.

  2. Bake the pie for at least one hour in the preheated oven.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Fine puff paste
Forms the buttery, flaky crust that encloses the filling and holds its shape.
Freshly-killed young pigeons
Provide the rich, dark meat that is the main body of the pie.
Veal cutlet or tender rump steak
Adds meaty body and savoury depth to the bottom layer of the pie.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, melting into the meat as it bakes.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a creamy texture that softens the meat-based filling.
Cold water or veal broth
Becomes the gravy that moistens the filling during baking.

The step that matters

Bake the pie for at least one hour in the preheated oven.. The meat must cook through completely under a thick crust, so the oven must be fully preheated and the pie kept in long enough for the filling to become tender and safe.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, butter, 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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