Skip to main content
Main

Pigeon Pie, or Partridge Pie

A savory pie filled with pigeon or partridges, steak, eggs, and gravy, topped with crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pigeon Pie, or Partridge Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Season the birds with pepper and salt, and place a small piece of butter mixed with pepper and bread crumbs inside each bird.

  3. In a pie dish, layer the sliced rump steak at the bottom, seasoned with pepper, salt, and lightly dredged with flour.

  4. Place the seasoned birds on top of the steak, and add the halved hard-boiled eggs.

  5. Pour in the gravy or water.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover with pie crust, wetting the rim with water to help it stick.

  2. Brush the top with egg yolk and insert the feet of the pigeons into the center hole of the crust.

  3. Bake for 1 to 1¼ hours.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Pigeons or partridges
Provide the main meat, which turns tender and juicy during the long, covered baking.
Rump steak
Adds beefy flavor and body to the filling as it braises in the liquid.
Eggs
Hard-boiled halves add richness and a firm, sliceable texture to the filling.
Flour
Lightly dredging the steak helps thicken the gravy around the meat.
Egg yolk
Brushed on top, it promotes a golden, glossy browning of the crust.

The step that matters

Wetting the rim before covering with crust. Water helps the pastry bond to the dish edge so it doesn't separate or slide off as it bakes and the steam builds inside.

“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.

More pigeon pie recipes

Filling 3 See all 224 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipes