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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with pigeons, beef steak, egg yolks, flour, and a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and pasta match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 659 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pigeon 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

  1. Soak the pigeons in cold water until the water is free from blood.

  2. Season the pigeons with salt and pepper.

  3. Place a beef steak at the bottom of the dish.

  4. Between every two pigeons, add half of a hard-boiled egg yolk.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix water with flour to thicken, then pour it over the pigeons.

  2. Cover with pie crust and decorate with three cleaned feet in the center.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Flour + pastatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together659 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Pepper + pastatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Beef + pastatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together366 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 and rich during slow baking.
Beef steak
Adds meaty flavor and extra juices that moisten the pie as it cooks.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a creamy texture to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy that binds the filling.
Pasta for pie crust
Forms the sealed top crust that traps steam and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Thickening the liquid with flour. Flour mixed with water must be stirred smoothly before pouring, or it clumps and leaves a grainy, uneven gravy instead of a glossy, thickened sauce.

“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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