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To Dress Cold Fowls or Pigeons

A dressing for cold fowl or pigeons made with egg yolks, parsley, breadcrumbs, cheese, ketchup, oil, vinegar, mustard, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,259 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the pigeons into quarters or the fowls into joints.

  2. Rub butter all over the fowl.

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the egg yolks with parsley and salt in a bowl, then add breadcrumbs and mix well.

  2. Combine cheese, ketchup, salad oil, vinegar, and mustard in another bowl and beat until well incorporated.

  3. Froth the sauce.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the fowl, basting frequently.

  2. Pour the sauce over the fowl.

  3. Garnish with pickled mushrooms or oysters.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + tarragontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tarragon + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together573 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Cheese + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,955 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tarragon + vinegartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,299 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Vinegar and mustard share little aroma chemistry, yet 14,067 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the breadcrumb mixture and add richness to the sauce.
Breadcrumbs
Add body to the dressing, soaking up liquid and giving it a thicker texture.
Salad oil
Adds fat and smoothness, keeping the sauce creamy and moist.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the oil.
Parmesan or cheshire cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the sauce brown in the oven.
Ketchup
Contributes sweetness and acidity, deepening the sauce's flavor.

The step that matters

Froth the sauce. Beating air into the emulsified oil and yolk mixture creates a light, stable foam that spreads over the fowl. Under-beating leaves the sauce dense and oily, so it won't coat the bird evenly.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cheese, ketchup, tarragon, vinegar, mustard, butter):

  1. Capersabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Celeryabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cheese, ketchup, tarragon, vinegar, mustard, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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