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To Stew Pigeons

A stew of quartered pigeons cooked 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

Stew the pigeons

  1. Place the quartered pigeons in a stewpan with salt and enough cold water to cover them slightly.

  2. Cover the stewpan tightly.

  3. Cook until nearly done, then add 1 tablespoon of butter and pepper.

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

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy by mixing flour with a little of the gravy until smooth, then add it to the stewpan.

  2. Stir in chopped parsley, the remaining butter, and the beaten egg.

  3. For extra richness, add cream. Return the pigeons to the gravy for a few moments 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. 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 main meat, which becomes tender through slow covered stewing.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the pigeons rather than running thin.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished gravy.
Beaten egg
Enriches and slightly thickens the gravy when stirred in at the end.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the gravy, optional in this dish.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with flour. Flour must be mixed smoothly with some gravy first, otherwise it clumps. Stirring the egg in over high heat can curdle it, so it should be added off the boil.

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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