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Stewed Pigeons

Stewed pigeons are cooked with butter, gravy, wine, mushrooms, onions, pickled oysters, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Season the pigeons with salt, pepper, cloves, mace, and sweet herbs.

  2. Wrap the seasoning in butter and stuff it into the pigeons.

  3. Tie the neck and vent of the pigeons and half roast them.

Stew and finish

  1. Place the pigeons in a saucepan with gravy, white wine, mushrooms, peppercorns, onion, and pickled oysters.

  2. Stew until cooked through.

  3. Thicken the stew with butter and the egg yolk.

  4. Garnish with lemon.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 stewing after partial roasting.
Butter
Adds richness and, worked into the stew, helps give a smooth body to the sauce.
Egg yolk
Thickens the stew as it gently heats, giving the sauce a silky, enriched texture.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and balances its savoury depth.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and moisture to the gravy as they simmer.

The step that matters

Thicken the stew with butter and the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat, so if the stew boils after it is added, the yolk can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and stir steadily.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, clove, butter, white wine, mushroom, onion, oyster):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, butter, white wine, mushroom, onion, oyster. 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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