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Pigeons Marinaded and Broiled

Pigeons marinated in oil, shallot, green onions, parsley, and spice, then coated with eggs and breadcrumbs and broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Pigeons Marinaded and Broiled

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Split the pigeons in half and flatten them.

  2. Marinate the pigeons for 24 hours in oil, shallot, green onions, parsley, and pounded spice.

Coat

  1. Remove the pigeons from the marination and dip them in beaten eggs.

  2. Coat the pigeons with bread crumbs.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the pigeons in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until cooked through.

  2. Serve immediately with ravigotte sauce.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 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

Pigeons
The main protein; splitting and flattening them helps them cook evenly under the broiler.
Eggs
Beaten eggs act as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere to the pigeon.
Bread crumbs
Form a coating that crisps and browns in the hot oven, adding texture.
Oil
Carries the marinade flavours and helps the coating brown rather than dry out.
Shallot
Adds a mild onion aroma and savoury flavour to the marinade.

The step that matters

Broil until cooked through. Pigeon is dark meat that can dry out or stay tough under intense direct heat. Watching the coating so it browns without burning, while the meat cooks through, is what makes the result juicy and tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, parsley, egg, bread):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, parsley, egg, bread. 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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