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Stewed Pigeons

Stewed pigeons are cooked with liver, breadcrumbs, anchovies, spices, and wine, then simmered in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stewed Pigeons

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the livers, bread crumbs, anchovies, salt, egg yolk, parsley, and lemon thyme to fill the pigeons' craws.

  2. Brown the pigeons in a stewpan with butter.

Stew

  1. Remove the pigeons and add gravy to cover them, along with mace, pepper, and lemon thyme.

  2. Stew over low heat for 1.5 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Take out the pigeons and thicken the sauce with butter rolled in flour and grated nutmeg.

  2. Stir in the white wine before serving.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeon livers
Add richness and a savoury, meaty flavour to the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Bind the stuffing and absorb moisture from the livers and egg.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing together so it holds its shape in the craws.
Butter
Adds fat and browning to the pigeons and enriches the thickened sauce.
Flour
Thickens the gravy sauce when rolled with butter.
White wine
Adds acidity and brightness to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Stew over low heat for 1.5 hours. Gentle, low heat lets the pigeon meat become tender without the sauce reducing too fast or the meat toughening. Rapid boiling would make the meat tough and dry.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, bread, egg, parsley, lemon, thyme, butter):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, bread, egg, parsley, lemon, thyme, butter. 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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