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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with veal cutlet or rump steak, young pigeons, boiled egg yolks, butter, spices, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Pigeon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dish

  1. Make a fine puff pastry and lay a border around a large dish.

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

Layer the filling

  1. Prepare enough young pigeons to fit in one layer, placing a slice of butter seasoned with cayenne and mace inside each.

  2. Lay the pigeons breast down in the dish and add the yolks of boiled eggs between and over them.

  3. Dot the pigeons with plenty of butter and season the whole with salt and spices.

  4. Pour in cold water or veal broth for gravy.

Cover and bake

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

  2. Bake the pie for an hour or more.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  3. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + mushroomtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,988 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky crust that browns and encloses the filling.
Veal cutlet or tender rump steak
Adds meaty body and savoury flavour to the base layer.
Freshly killed young pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and rich during slow baking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, carrying the seasonings through the meat.
Boiled eggs (yolks only)
Yolks add richness and a creamy texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Covering and sealing the pastry. The pastry lid must be sealed firmly around the edge so steam and juices stay inside, keeping the meat moist while it bakes long enough to become tender.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, butter, egg, mushroom. 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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