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Stewed Pigeons

Stewed pigeons stuffed with liver, parsley, and butter, simmered with bacon and stock, finished with a mushroom ketchup and port wine gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Stewed Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Empty and clean the pigeons thoroughly.

  2. Mince the livers and mix with parsley and butter, then stuff the mixture into the pigeons.

  3. Truss the pigeons with the legs inward.

Stew

  1. Place them in a stewpan with bacon slices underneath and on top.

  2. Add stock to cover the pigeons.

  3. Stew gently for about 1 hour.

  4. Remove the pigeons.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Strain the gravy.

  2. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour.

  3. Add ketchup and port wine.

  4. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  5. Pour it over the pigeons.

  6. Serve.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Mushroom + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through gentle, slow stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the birds and stock as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the stuffing and, with flour, thickens the gravy.
Flour
Combined with butter, it thickens the gravy to a smooth, coating consistency.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Stew gently for about 1 hour. Keeping the stock at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil lets the pigeon meat become tender without toughening or breaking apart.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, mushroom, ketchup, port wine):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, mushroom, ketchup, port wine. 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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