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Pigeons, Stewed, with Cabbage

A stew of pigeons cooked with cabbage, suet, bread crumbs, herbs, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Pigeons, Stewed, with Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Pluck, singe, and draw the pigeons.

  2. Stuff the pigeons with a forcemeat made from minced livers, beef suet, and bread crumbs. Add pepper, salt, nutmeg, parsley, and thyme.

  3. Moisten the forcemeat with the yolk of a beaten egg.

  4. Truss the pigeons firmly as if for boiling.

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Half boil the cabbage.

  2. Shred the cabbage finely.

  3. Drain the shredded cabbage thoroughly.

  4. Lay the shredded cabbage at the bottom of a stewpan.

Stew and serve

  1. Place the pigeons on top of the cabbage.

  2. Cover the pigeons and cabbage with white stock and put the lid on.

  3. Stew gently until tender.

  4. Add the butter rolled in flour and thick cream.

  5. Stew for a few more minutes.

  6. Serve hot with the pigeons on a dish surrounded by cabbage and sauce.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Nutmeg + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Melts into the forcemeat, keeping the stuffing moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the forcemeat so it holds together in the bird.
Egg yolk
Binds the forcemeat and adds richness to hold the stuffing together.
Butter
Rolled in flour, it thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, glossy sauce.
Thick cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, softening its flavour.
White cabbage
Forms a bed under the pigeons and soaks up savoury flavour from the stock.

The step that matters

Add the butter rolled in flour and thick cream. Flour-coated butter must be stirred in gradually so it disperses without lumps; the starch thickens the liquid as it heats, and simmering gently keeps the cream from curdling or breaking.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, thyme, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, thyme, egg. 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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