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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie made with pigeons, giblets, beef steak, eggs, ketchup, and a butter‑flour crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pigeon Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Pick, singe, draw, and wash the pigeons.

  2. Cut off the points of the wings, neck, and feet.

  3. Season the inside of the pigeons with pepper, salt, and butter.

Fill the dish

  1. Place the giblets and beef steak at the bottom of the pie dish.

  2. Lay the pigeons in the dish, add black pepper, salt, and good stock.

  3. Cut the hard-boiled eggs in half and add them to the dish with the ketchup.

Make and bake the pie

  1. Make a paste with the flour and butter.

  2. Create a border around the pie dish with the paste.

  3. Cover the pie with the paste.

  4. Notch the edges.

  5. Cut a hole in the center.

  6. Make a rose from the paste.

  7. Place the rose in the hole, arranging the pigeons' feet around it.

  8. Brush the pie with an egg wash.

  9. Bake at 400°F (200°C).

  10. Once the paste is done, cover it with paper.

  11. Let it stew for 1 hour at 300°F (150°C).

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Ketchup + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour 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 while stewing in the stock.
Beef steak
Adds savoury meaty flavour to the stock as it cooks in the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the seasoning and the flour paste.
Flour
Forms the paste that builds the pie crust and seals in the filling.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and a firm, mild texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Covering the paste with paper before stewing. Once the paste has set and browned, paper shields it from direct heat so it does not darken or burn during the long, gentle stew at lower temperature.

“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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