Why it works: Pepper and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,303 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. 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.
Wash the pigeons in cold water and dry them.
In a deep dish, layer the chopped rump steak and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Place the pigeons on top, along with their livers, and season them.
Add some yolk of hard-boiled eggs.
Cover with puff pastry, brush with beaten egg, and decorate with small leaves.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.
Pour in some cullis before serving.
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.
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Pepper + saucetop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,303 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together50,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + saucetop 39% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,895 recipes
Pepper and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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
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