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Stewed Pigeons

Stewed pigeons are braised with olives, onions, parsley, bread crumbs, and a savory gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stewed Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Clean and dry the pigeons.

  2. Mix olives, chopped onion, parsley, bread crumbs, melted butter, and hot water to make stuffing. Season stuffing with salt, paprika, and currant jelly.

  3. Stuff the pigeons with the stuffing.

  4. Truss the stuffed pigeons with twine.

Braise

  1. Heat butter in a saucepan.

  2. Brown the stuffed pigeons in the butter.

  3. Stir in flour. Gradually add boiling water until the mixture is smooth.

  4. Add onion, carrots, celery, salt, and peppercorns.

  5. Cover the saucepan tightly.

  6. Cook slowly for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the pigeons are tender.

Serve

  1. Serve the pigeons on slices of toast.

  2. Strain the gravy. Thicken the gravy.

  3. Serve the gravy separately.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  5. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, covered cooking.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the stuffing so it holds together while cooking.
Butter
Adds fat and browning to the pigeons and carries flavour into the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth gravy.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity acidity that balances the rich meat.
Olives
Add briny, savoury flavour to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Browning the stuffed pigeons in the butter. Browning creates colour and roasted flavour through the Maillard reaction, which only happens on a dry, hot surface. Pigeons that are wet or crowded in the pan will steam rather than brown.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, onion, parsley, bread, butter, flour, carrot):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, onion, parsley, bread, butter, flour, carrot. 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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