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Pigeons a LA Crapaudine

Pigeons seasoned, fried, and broiled with a butter‑shallot gravy, bread crumbs, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 a LA Crapaudine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Cut the pigeons in half and flatten them.

  2. Season each piece with salt and pepper.

  3. Melt the butter in a frying pan.

  4. Fry the pigeons on both sides for 15 minutes.

  5. Place the pigeons between two flat dishes with a weight on top and press well.

Make the gravy

  1. Sauté the chopped shallots in the remaining butter for a few moments.

  2. Add a little stock and reduce.

  3. Strain through a sieve.

  4. Remove the grease.

Finish and serve

  1. Melt a little butter and dip the pigeons in it.

  2. Coat the pigeons in bread crumbs.

  3. Broil for 10 minutes.

  4. Warm the gravy and place it on a dish.

  5. Add the pigeons on top.

  6. Serve with sliced lemon.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Shallot + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 is flattened and pressed so it cooks evenly.
Butter
Fats the pan for frying and enriches the gravy, adding richness and flavour.
Shallots
Add a mild aromatic sweetness to the stock-based gravy.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns under the broiler.

The step that matters

Pressing the pigeons flat. Pressing between weighted dishes keeps the pieces flat and even in thickness, so they cook through at the same rate and brown evenly instead of staying raw in the thick parts.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, bread, lemon):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Shallotthe original
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, bread, lemon. 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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