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Roast Pigeons

Roasted pigeons stuffed with bread crumbs, herbs, and pork, served with a wine and stock gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,075 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Roast Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix stale bread crumbs, marjoram, pepper, sea salt, ground cloves, chopped onion, salt pork, and eggs until well combined.

Stuff and roast

  1. Stuff the pigeons with the mixture, sew them up, and truss them tightly.

  2. Roast the pigeons for 30 minutes, basting with butter and pinning a strip of salt pork to the breast.

Make the gravy

  1. For the gravy, combine drippings, meat stock, butter, and flour in a saucepan.

  2. Add red wine and cloves, then bring to a boil.

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. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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 cooks through while the stuffing heats inside.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the stuffing so it holds together during roasting.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing mixture so it holds together when cooked.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the stuffing and the breast of the bird.
Flour
Thickens the drippings and stock into a smooth gravy.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Truss the pigeons tightly before roasting. Tight trussing keeps the stuffing enclosed and helps the birds cook evenly, so the stuffing does not spill out and the legs and breast finish at similar times.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, marjoram, pepper, clove, pork, egg, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, marjoram, pepper, clove, pork, egg, butter. 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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