Name: Pigeon Pie
Ingredients: puff pastry; 1 veal cutlet or tender steak, free from fat and bone; coarse sea salt; cayenne pepper; mace; pigeons (as many as fit in one layer); butter; black pepper; hard boiled eggs (6)

Why it works: Pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pigeon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Prepare puff pastry and lay a border around a large dish.
Cover the bottom with the veal cutlet or steak, and season with salt, cayenne pepper, and mace.
Prepare the pigeons by placing a small lump of butter inside each and seasoning with black pepper and salt.

Assemble and bake

Lay the pigeons breast down in the dish and slice the hard boiled eggs, placing them in with the birds.
Add more butter and some veal broth, then cover the whole with crust.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for an hour and a half.

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.

Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,257 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,761 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,049 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Puff pastry: Forms the crust that encloses the filling and bakes into a flaky, golden top.
Veal cutlet or tender steak: Lies under the birds and adds meaty flavour and richness to the juices.
Pigeons: Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful during the long, gentle bake.
Butter: Adds fat that enriches the meat and helps the crust brown.
Hard boiled eggs: Add richness and body to the filling as they sit among the birds.