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Stewed Pigeons

A stew of pigeons cooked in a sauce of beef dripping, onion, tomato, parsley, flour, cornflour, stock, and tarragon vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stewed Pigeons

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the beef dripping in a stewpan.

  2. Add the sliced onion, tomatoes, and parsley.

  3. Fry until the onion is lightly browned.

  4. Stir in the flour and cornflour until smoothly mixed.

  5. Gradually pour in the stock.

  6. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  7. Reduce heat.

  8. Let it simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  9. Season with salt, pepper, and tarragon vinegar.

  10. Add browning to achieve a rich brown color.

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Roast the pigeons.

  2. Cut the pigeons up.

  3. Remove the skin while still hot.

  4. Place the pigeon pieces in a clean stewpan.

  5. Strain the sauce over the pigeon pieces.

  6. Cover the pan.

Stew and serve

  1. Place it in a larger pan of hot water in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour.

  2. Arrange the stewed pigeons on a hot dish.

  3. Garnish with kite-shaped sippets.

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. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tomato + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together391 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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 becomes tender through roasting and slow stewing.
Beef dripping
Adds fat for frying the onion and carries rich, savoury flavour into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the stock.
Cornflour
Adds extra thickening so the sauce turns glossy and holds together.
Tomatoes
Contribute acidity and body to the sauce as they cook down.
Onion
Browns in the fat to add sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer the sauce gently before stewing. Boiling flour-thickened sauces hard can scorch the starch and break the texture, so keeping a gentle simmer gives a smooth, well-thickened sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, tomato, parsley, flour, sauce, pepper, tarragon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, parsley, flour, sauce, pepper, tarragon. 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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