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Pigeons in Jelly

Pigeons served in savory jelly with lemon peel, bacon, celery, and myrtle garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Pigeons in Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Clean the pigeons thoroughly, singeing and washing them, and clip the nails close to the claws.

  2. Season the inside of the pigeons with pepper, salt, and chopped celery.

  3. Skewer the pigeons in a sitting position in a dripping pan, keeping their heads up.

Set in jelly

  1. Prepare a savory jelly.

  2. Pour an inch of jelly into a mold and let it harden.

  3. Ensure no gravy adheres to the pigeons, then place them in the mold side by side with heads down and a sprig of myrtle in each bill.

  4. Fill the mold with jelly, ensuring it comes three inches above the feet.

  5. Refrigerate for 24 hours before serving.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Corn + celerytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the meat that is set whole inside the clear savory jelly.
Savory jelly
Surrounds the birds, setting into a firm, sliceable gel that holds the dish together.

The step that matters

Ensure no gravy adheres to the pigeons. Any residual gravy or fat on the birds can cloud the jelly and stop it from setting clear and smooth around the meat. Wiping the surface well before the jelly is poured helps it adhere cleanly and set evenly.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, lemon, pepper, egg, myrtle):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, lemon, pepper, egg, myrtle. 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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