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Pigeon Dumplings or Puddings

A dish of pigeons wrapped in suet paste and boiled, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pigeon Dumplings or Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Take four pigeons and stuff them with chopped oysters, seasoned with pepper, salt, mace, and nutmeg.

  2. Score the breasts and loosen all the joints with a sharp knife, as if you were going to carve them for eating, but do not cut them quite apart.

Make and fill the dumplings

  1. Make a sufficient quantity of suet paste, using one pound of suet to two pounds of flour.

  2. Roll the suet paste out thick and divide it into four sheets.

  3. Lay one pigeon on each sheet of paste with the back downwards.

  4. Place a piece of butter rolled in flour at the lower part of the breast.

  5. Close the paste over the pigeon to form a dumpling or small pudding.

  6. Pour a very little cold water into the dumpling at the last to add to the gravy.

  7. Tie each dumpling in a cloth.

Boil and serve

  1. Put the dumplings into a pot of hot water and boil them for two hours.

  2. Serve the dumplings with made gravy in a boat.

  3. Partridges or quails may be cooked in this manner; also chickens, which must be accompanied by egg sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

575Calories
13 gProtein
14 gFat
98 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Leslie. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the suet paste that encloses and cooks the pigeon.
Suet
Adds fat to the paste, keeping it rich and tender as it steams.
Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which cooks gently inside the sealed paste.
Butter
Adds fat at the breast, enriching the meat and moistening it as it cooks.
Oysters (in the method)
Stuffing that adds briny, savoury flavour to the bird.

The step that matters

Tie each dumpling in a cloth. The cloth must hold the paste closed and firm during the long boil; a loose or poorly sealed dumpling can let water in and break apart, spoiling the pigeon and the gravy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, pepper, nutmeg. 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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