Name: Roast Pigeons
Ingredients: pigeons; butter; cayenne pepper; brown gravy; young watercress

Why it works: Pepper and watercress work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 983 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Roast Pigeons

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Dress the pigeons while fresh and clean them thoroughly.
Wipe them dry and place a small piece of butter dipped in cayenne inside each bird.
Truss the wings over the back.
Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven, basting constantly with butter.
Serve with brown gravy and garnish with young 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.

Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together983 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + watercresstop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together842 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).