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To Roast Pigeons

Roasted pigeons stuffed with butter, parsley, pepper, and salt, served with asparagus and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Roast Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dress the pigeons as previously described.

  2. Roll a good lump of butter in chopped parsley, with pepper and salt.

  3. Stuff the mixture into the pigeons.

Roast and serve

  1. Spit and baste the pigeons.

  2. Roast for about 20 minutes until cooked through.

  3. Serve with bunches of asparagus and melted butter on the side.

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

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

  2. Parsley + asparagustop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together566 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + asparagustop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + asparagustop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Main protein; roasting cooks the meat while the skin browns and crisps.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the meat juicy and carrying flavour as it cooks.
Chopped parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma to the butter stuffing.
Asparagus
Provides a fresh, slightly bitter vegetable contrast to the rich roasted birds.

The step that matters

Roast for about 20 minutes until cooked through. Pigeon is rich and can dry out or stay underdone if overcooked or undercooked. Basting keeps the surface moist while the centre reaches a safe, tender doneness.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, pepper. 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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