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Broiled Pigeons

Broiled pigeons seasoned with pepper, salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Squab and butter work together. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 48 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Broiled Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the pigeons down the back and clean them thoroughly.

  2. Wash and dry the pigeons on a clean napkin.

  3. Prepare a bed of clear coals and heat your grill.

  4. Grease the grill bars to prevent sticking.

Broil and serve

  1. Place the pigeons over the fire and turn them frequently, avoiding burning the legs and wings.

  2. Once cooked, place them on a dish.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Baste both sides well with butter.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Squab + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together35 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pigeons or squabs
Provide the meat that is cooked over the fire.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the surface brown as it bastes.

The step that matters

Turning over the fire. Turning the pigeons frequently over clear coals cooks them evenly and keeps the thin legs and wings from scorching before the thicker meat is done.

“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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