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Blackbird Pie

A baked pie filled with pigeons, potatoes, and a savory gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Blackbird Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the gravy

  1. Boil 4 quarts of water, skimming off any scum.

  2. Add salt, pepper, parsley, onion, and cloves.

  3. Add diced salt pork and boil until tender, ensuring water covers the birds.

  4. Thicken the mixture with browned flour and let it boil.

  5. Stir in butter and remove from heat to cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a buttered pudding dish with pie crust.

  2. Layer in the birds, then potatoes, repeating until the dish is full.

  3. Pour the gravy over the layers and cover with top crust, cutting a slit in the center.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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 as it simmers in the gravy.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the cooking liquid as it softens.
Potatoes
Add bulk and starch that soaks up the gravy between the layers.
Browned flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy and adds a toasted flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with browned flour and let it boil. Flour must be fully cooked in the hot liquid to thicken evenly. Stirring it in without lumps and boiling briefly removes raw flour taste and gives the gravy a smooth, stable body.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, potato, flour, egg, butter, onion, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, potato, flour, egg, butter, onion, parsley. 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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