Name: Roast Pigeons or Squabs
Ingredients: young pigeons or squabs; thin slices of bacon or salt pork; flour; butter; coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); parsley; slices of toast; French-fried or Saratoga potatoes

Why it works: Parsley and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Roast Pigeons or Squabs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Draw, clean, and truss the pigeons or squabs.
Tie thin slices of bacon or salt pork over the breasts.
Dredge with flour and place a small piece of butter inside each bird.
Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 to 20 minutes, basting with butter and a little hot water.
Alternatively, split them down the back, cover with slices of pork or pieces of butter, dredge with flour, and roast.
Serve on slices of toast, garnished with parsley and French-fried or Saratoga potatoes.

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.

Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Squab + porktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together26 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (squab, pork, flour, butter, potato):

Thymefits about as well
Garlicfits about as well
Parsleythe original
Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against squab, pork, flour, butter, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.