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Pigeons, Stuffed and Stewed

Pigeons stuffed with seasoned breadcrumbs, herbs, and egg yolk, then stewed in stock and served with a thickened sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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, Stuffed and Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Truss the pigeons as for boiling.

  2. Mince the livers finely and mix with the bread crumbs, lemon rind, thyme, parsley, and crushed egg yolk.

  3. Fill the pigeons with the mixture and add 1/2 ounce of butter to each.

Stew

  1. Place the pigeons breast down in a small stewpan and cover with veal stock or water.

  2. Stew gently until cooked through, about 1 hour.

  3. Remove the pigeons and strain the gravy.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with flour mixed with cream and egg yolks, then season with pepper, salt, and mace.

  2. Heat the sauce without boiling, add the pigeons for 1 minute to warm, and serve immediately.

  3. Add stewed mushrooms for extra flavor, if desired.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through gentle stewing.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream and flour sauce, giving it body and richness.
Flour
Thickens the gravy together with the cream and egg yolks.
Bread crumbs
Bind the liver stuffing and absorb juices, keeping the filling moist.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffed birds and their gravy.

The step that matters

Heat the sauce without boiling. Egg yolks in the thickened sauce can curdle and turn grainy if they boil, so the sauce should only be heated gently before the pigeons are added.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, lemon, parsley, egg, butter, veal, flour):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, lemon, parsley, egg, butter, veal, flour. 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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