Skip to main content
Main

Pigeon or Lark Pie

A savory pie made with pigeons or larks, veal stuffing, rump steak, egg yolks, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Pigeon or Lark Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Truss the pigeons as for stewing.

  2. Season the pigeons with pepper and salt.

  3. Fill the pigeons with veal stuffing or finely chopped parsley mixed with butter, pepper, and salt.

Assemble the pie

  1. Cut the rump steak into pieces and season the rump steak.

  2. Place the rump steak at the bottom of a deep dish.

  3. Lay the pigeons on top of the steak.

  4. Add the hard-boiled egg yolks.

  5. Pour in the broth or water.

  6. Wet the edge of the dish.

  7. Cover with puff pastry.

  8. Wash the pastry with egg yolk.

  9. Decorate with pastry leaves and the feet of the pigeons.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 hours.

  2. Before serving, make a small opening in the top and pour in hot gravy.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender during the long covered baking.
Rump steak
Adds beefy flavor and moisture to the dish as it cooks beneath the birds.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a creamy texture to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to the parsley and stuffing mixture.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky crust that browns in the oven and seals in moisture.

The step that matters

Covering and sealing the dish before baking. Wetting the dish edge lets the pastry bond to it, so the pie seals and steam stays inside to cook the pigeons gently. A poor seal lets moisture escape and can leave the meat dry and the crust soggy.

“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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes