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Pigeons Stewed in Broth

A stew of pigeons cooked with bacon, carrot, onion, sugar, parsley, and stock or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley 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 ↓

Pigeons Stewed in Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Tie pigeons in shape if they are not young.

  2. Place slices of bacon at the bottom of a stewpan.

  3. Lay the pigeons side by side with their breasts facing up.

  4. Add a slice of carrot, the onion, sugar, and parsley.

  5. Pour enough stock or boiling water to cover the pigeons.

  6. Place thin slices of bacon over the tops of the pigeons.

Stew and serve

  1. Cover closely and add boiling water or stock as needed.

  2. Let them simmer until very tender.

  3. Serve each pigeon on a thin slice of buttered toast with a border of spinach.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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 long, gentle simmering.
Slices of bacon
Add savoury fat and smoky flavour that seasons the stew and the meat.
Stock or boiling water
Forms the cooking liquid that tenderises the pigeons and carries flavour through the dish.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Let them simmer until very tender. Pigeon meat is firm and can toughen if cooked hard or fast. Gentle, covered simmering breaks down connective tissue slowly, so the meat becomes tender without drying out.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, clove, sugar, parsley):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, clove, sugar, parsley. 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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