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To Stew Pigeons

A stew of quartered pigeons cooked in salted water, finished with butter, pepper, flour, parsley, egg, and optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Stew Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Braise

  1. Place quartered pigeons in a stewpan with a little coarse sea salt and enough cold water to barely cover them.

  2. Cover the stewpan tightly and cook until nearly done.

  3. Add a bit of butter and some black pepper.

Finish the gravy

  1. Once fully cooked, transfer the pigeons to a hot dish.

  2. Thicken the gravy with flour mixed with a little of the gravy.

  3. Stir in chopped parsley, another bit of butter, and the beaten egg.

  4. Add cream for extra flavor if desired.

  5. Return the pigeons to the gravy.

  6. Let them sit for a few moments, then serve.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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 meat, which becomes tender through slow moist cooking in the stewpan.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells when heated in the liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the gravy a smoother, rounder flavor.
Beaten egg
Stirred into the gravy to add body and help it hold together.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with flour mixed with a little of the gravy. Adding flour directly to hot liquid causes lumps because the starch clumps before it disperses. Mixing it first with some cool gravy spreads the starch evenly so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, flour, egg, cream. 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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