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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with veal cutlet, pigeons, butter, egg yolks, and spices, topped with 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 the dish

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

  2. Line a large dish with fine puff pastry.

  3. Cover the bottom with the veal cutlet or steak.

  4. Season the cutlet or steak with coarse sea salt, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg or pounded mace.

  5. Prepare the pigeons.

Fill and season

  1. Place the pigeons in a single layer in the dish, breasts down.

  2. Stuff each pigeon with a slice or ball of butter.

  3. Season each pigeon with cayenne pepper and mace.

  4. Add the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs between and over the pigeons.

  5. Dot the pigeons with more butter.

  6. Season the entire dish with coarse sea salt and spices.

  7. Pour in enough cold water or veal broth to create gravy.

Cover and bake

  1. Roll out the pastry cover to ¾ inch thick.

  2. Secure the pastry around the edge.

  3. Decorate the pastry.

  4. Bake for at least 1 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 pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Veal cutlet or tender rump steak
Adds meat that becomes tender and savoury as it cooks beneath the pigeons.
Freshly-killed young pigeons
Provide the main meat, which cooks through and stays moist under the pastry.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, basting the pigeons as it melts during baking.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Enrich the filling with fat and a creamy texture as they warm through.
Cold water or veal broth
Creates the gravy that forms as the juices mingle and cook down in the dish.

The step that matters

Securing the pastry edge. A tight seal keeps steam and juices inside so the filling stays moist and the gravy forms rather than leaking out and drying the meat.

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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