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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with pigeons, beefsteak, eggs, livers, and pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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

Prepare

  1. Rub the pigeons inside and out with salt and pepper.

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

Assemble the pie

  1. Lay a beefsteak at the bottom of the dish.

  2. Place the pigeons on top of the beefsteak, adding a hard-boiled egg between each pair.

  3. Add 1 cup of water to the dish and optional pieces of ham on each pigeon.

  4. Season the gizzards and two wing joints, placing them in the center of the pie.

  5. Insert three cleaned feet through a hole in the crust to identify the pie.

  6. Cover with pastry and bake until golden.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  5. Liver + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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 and rich during slow baking under pastry.
Beefsteak
Lies beneath the birds, adding meaty flavor and juices to the pie.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a firm, sliced texture between the pigeons.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the filling inside each pigeon.
Livers
Add a deeper, earthy flavor to the parsley and butter stuffing.

“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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