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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with veal cutlet, pigeons, eggs, butter, and spices, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. 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.

Prepare the dish

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line a large dish with fine puff pastry and cover the bottom with the veal cutlet or steak.

  3. Season the meat with coarse sea salt, cayenne, and nutmeg or mace.

Assemble the pie

  1. Prepare the pigeons, placing a slice or ball of butter seasoned with cayenne and mace inside each.

  2. Arrange the pigeons in the dish with their breasts facing down.

  3. Add the yolks of hard-boiled eggs between and over the pigeons.

  4. Dot the top with plenty of butter and season well with salt and spices.

  5. Pour in some cold water or veal broth for gravy.

Cover and bake

  1. Roll out the pastry cover to ¾ inch thick, secure it around the edge, and decorate it.

  2. Bake for an hour or more until golden brown.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + mushroomtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,988 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fine puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that encloses the filling.
Veal cutlet or tender rump steak
Adds savoury meat that cooks slowly in the pie's juices.
Freshly-killed young pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender during long, gentle baking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the meat stay juicy as it bakes.
Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks add richness and a creamy texture to the filling.
Veal broth or cold water
Becomes the gravy, adding moisture as the pie bakes.

The step that matters

Covering and baking the pie. The pastry must be sealed well around the edge so steam and juices stay inside, keeping the meat moist. Baking long enough lets the meat become tender while the pastry browns.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, butter, egg, mushroom):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, butter, egg, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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