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Preserve

Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with pigeons, beef steak, hard‑boiled eggs, gizzards, wings, and optional ham, baked with butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 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. Clean the pigeons.

  3. Season the pigeons inside and out with salt and pepper.

  4. Place a bit of butter and chopped parsley mixed with the livers inside each pigeon.

Assemble the pie

  1. Lay the beef steak at the bottom of a pie dish.

  2. Place the pigeons on top of the steak.

  3. Add a hard-boiled egg between each pair of pigeons.

  4. Add a cup of water to the dish.

  5. If using ham, place a piece of ham on each pigeon.

  6. Season the gizzards and wings.

  7. Place the gizzards and wings in the center of the pie.

Bake

  1. Make a hole in the crust.

  2. Insert three cleaned feet into the hole to identify the pie.

  3. Cover the pie with a crust.

  4. Bake for about an hour.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Beef + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which cooks slowly in the pie to become tender.
Beef steak
Lies under the birds, adding meaty richness to the juices that form in the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture, helping the birds stay juicy as they bake.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and a firm, sliceable texture to the filling.
Parsley
Contributes a fresh, green aroma that brightens the rich meat.

The step that matters

Bake for about an hour. Pigeon and steak must cook long enough to become tender in the water-based juices, while the crust is kept from over-browning. Check that the meat is cooked through before serving.

“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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