Name: Baked Pigeons
Ingredients: pigeons, cleaned and prepared for roasting; thin slices of salt pork or bacon; cold water; watercress, for garnish; lemon juice, for sprinkling

Why it works: Watercress and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 579 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Baked Pigeons

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

pigeons, cleaned and prepared for roasting
thin slices of salt pork or bacon
cold water
watercress, for garnish
lemon juice, for sprinkling

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Lay the pigeons in a baking pan on their backs.
Place a thin slice of salt pork or bacon on the breast of each pigeon.
Cover the bottom of the pan with cold water.
Bake in the hot oven, basting often until done.
Transfer the birds to a serving dish, garnish with watercress, sprinkle with lemon juice, and serve warm.

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.

Watercress + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together579 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pork + watercresstop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together318 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Pork + lemontop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,786 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).