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Pigeon' Pie

A savory pie with pigeon quarters, rump steak, boiled eggs, and pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. 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 the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Season the pigeons and steak with salt and pepper.

  3. Layer the steak in a 10‑inch pie dish.

  4. Place the pigeons on top of the steak.

  5. Add the yolks of the boiled eggs evenly spaced.

  6. Pour in the gravy or water.

  7. Rub the edge of the dish with butter.

Make the pastry

  1. Mix flour with cold water and lemon juice.

  2. Knead the dough flat.

  3. Place butter in the center of the dough.

  4. Fold the dough over the butter.

  5. Roll out the dough four times, dusting with flour each time.

  6. Let the pastry rest in a cool place for 2‑3 hours.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the pie dish with pastry.

  2. Moisten the edges.

  3. Cover with more pastry.

  4. Seal the edges.

  5. Trim and notch the edges.

  6. Make a hole in the center.

  7. Decorate as desired.

  8. Bake for 2 hours and 15 minutes.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 slow bake.
Rump steak
Adds meaty bulk and rich flavour to the filling beneath the birds.
Eggs
Boiled yolks add richness and a firm, sliceable texture to the filling.
All-purpose flour
Forms the pastry structure that holds the filling and bakes into a crisp shell.
Unsalted butter
Laminated into the dough, it creates flaky layers and browning in the crust.

The step that matters

Rolling and resting the laminated pastry. Folding butter into dough and rolling it repeatedly creates flaky layers. Keeping the dough cold and resting it lets the butter stay firm and the gluten relax, so the pastry does not tear or turn greasy in the oven.

“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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