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Roast Pigeons or Squabs

Roast pigeons or squabs coated in flour and butter, basted with butter and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Squab and pork work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 26 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Roast Pigeons or Squabs

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

  1. Draw, clean, and truss the pigeons or squabs.

  2. Tie thin slices of bacon or salt pork over the breasts.

  3. Dredge the birds with flour.

  4. Place a small piece of butter inside each bird.

Roast and baste

  1. Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Baste with butter and a little hot water.

Alternative preparation

  1. Alternatively, split the birds down the back.

  2. Cover with slices of pork or pieces of butter.

  3. Dredge with flour.

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. Squab + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Squab + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Squab + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Young pigeons or squabs
Provide the lean meat that forms the main body of the dish.
Bacon or salt pork
Lays fat over the breasts, adding moisture and savoury flavour as it renders.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the birds stay moist and brown in the oven.
Flour
Dredged over the birds to help the surface brown and develop a crisp coating.

The step that matters

Roasting time. Squab breast is lean and dries out quickly, and small birds move from done to dry within minutes. Checking early keeps the meat tender and juicy.

“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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