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Stewed Pigeon

A pigeon stewed in butter, stock, and flour, served over toast with a reduced gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Pigeon

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the pigeon

  1. Prepare and truss the pigeon as for roasting, then coat it with flour.

  2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan until smoking hot, then add the pigeon and brown it on all sides.

  3. Turn the pigeon with a spoon for even browning.

  4. Remove the pigeon to a plate and pour off excess grease from the pan.

Stew

  1. Add the stock to the pan and warm it over the fire, then return the pigeon.

  2. Cover the pan and let the pigeon stew gently for 1 to 2 hours, turning it halfway through.

Finish and serve

  1. Once tender, lift the pigeon onto a square of toast and remove the trussing string.

  2. Reduce the gravy by boiling it quickly without the lid until just enough remains for serving.

  3. Skim off any grease and pour the gravy around the pigeon.

  4. Garnish with a sprig of parsley or a little watercress.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Pigeon
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Butter
Browns the pigeon and adds richness to the pan.
Stock
Forms the liquid that stews the bird and becomes the gravy.
Flour
Coats the pigeon so it browns well and lightly thickens the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the pigeon. Getting the butter very hot and browning the bird on all sides builds colour and flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pouring off excess grease before stewing keeps the gravy from tasting greasy.

“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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