Why it works: Liver and bread work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 731 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Figeons Ramiers Bt Tourterelles, Rotis
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Remove the insides of the pigeons and place their liver inside.
Truss the pigeons and wrap them in bacon or fat.
Roast them on a spit for 14 to 16 minutes, placing slices of bread underneath.
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.
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Liver + breadtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together731 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 main meat, which cooks quickly and becomes tender when roasted whole.
- Liver from pigeons
- Placed inside the birds, it adds rich, savoury flavour to the meat as it cooks.
- Bacon or fat
- Wrapping the birds adds moisture and fat, helping keep the lean meat from drying out.
- Slices of bread
- Placed underneath, they catch the dripping fat and juices and become flavoured with them.
The step that matters
Roasting time. Pigeons are small and lean, so they cook fast. Too much time on the spit dries out the meat, while the bacon or fat wrap helps protect it from the heat.
“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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