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Stewed Pigeons or Squabs

A stew of pigeons or squabs seasoned with herbs, bread crumbs, and corned pork, finished with a butter‑flour roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Pigeons or Squabs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the birds

  1. Wash the pigeons or squabs thoroughly in salt water and dry them well.

  2. Mix the herbs, bread crumbs, egg, salt, and pepper to create a savory dressing.

  3. Scald the feet by holding them in boiling water and tie them crosswise.

  4. Secure the dressing by running a small skewer through the skin over the breast.

Stew and brown

  1. Place slices of corned pork in a stewpan, cover with water, and add stock.

  2. Cook slowly until tender, then brown in the oven at 350°F (175°C) or in a frying pan with butter.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. To make the roux, stir butter and flour in a frying pan until brown.

  2. Thicken the gravy with a roux made from butter and flour.

  3. Add claret or port wine for extra flavor, if desired.

  4. Serve on toast.

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

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

  2. Squab + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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 or squabs
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Bread crumbs
Bind with the egg to form a savory dressing that gives the stuffing body.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs and herbs so the dressing holds together during cooking.
Corned pork
Adds salty, savory flavor to the stewing liquid and the finished gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and, with flour, forms a roux that browns and thickens the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked with butter into a roux.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until tender. Pigeon meat is firm and lean, so gentle, long simmering in liquid breaks down connective tissue. Boiling hard toughens the meat and can leave it dry.

“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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