Skip to main content
Main

Roast Pigeons

Roast pigeons are seasoned, roasted, and served with a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Clean the pigeons.

  2. Stuff them like chickens, leaving the feet on.

  3. Dip the feet in scalding water and remove the skin from the feet.

  4. Tie the feet together below the breastbone.

  5. If keeping the head, dip it in scalding water and clean the head.

  6. Twist the wings back.

  7. Place the liver between the right wing and the body.

  8. Tuck the head under the other wing.

  9. Rub the outside of each bird with a mixture of pepper and salt.

  10. Skewer the pigeons.

Roast

  1. Place some water in the dripping pan.

  2. Add a piece of butter to the pan.

  3. Roast the pigeons in front of a hot fire, basting frequently for about 30 minutes.

  4. Dredge the pigeons with wheat flour.

  5. Baste them with the butter in the pan.

  6. Turn the pigeons to brown them evenly.

  7. Remove the pigeons from the pan.

Make the gravy

  1. Set the pan over the fire.

  2. Make a thin batter with a teaspoon of wheat flour and cold water.

  3. Stir the batter into the boiling gravy.

  4. Continue stirring until the gravy is brown.

  5. Pour the gravy through a sieve into a tureen.

  6. Serve the gravy with the pigeons.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Pepper + wheattop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together984 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they 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

Pigeons
The main meat, cooked whole so the flesh stays moist while the skin browns.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, helping the birds brown and gain flavour in the pan.
Wheat flour
Dredged on the birds and whisked into batter to thicken the pan gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring the batter into the boiling gravy. Flour thickens gravy only when its starch is well dispersed; adding a thin batter to boiling liquid while stirring prevents lumps and gives a smooth, even thickening.

“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.

You might also like

Wheat GruelWheat Gruel6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes