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To Roast Pigeons

Roasted pigeons seasoned with butter and cayenne, served with brown gravy, parsley, and watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 469 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

To Roast Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dress the pigeons while they are very fresh, removing heads, necks, and toes at the first joint.

  2. Carefully draw them, avoiding the gall-bladders, and wipe them dry.

  3. Insert a small piece of butter dipped in cayenne into each bird.

Roast and serve

  1. Truss the wings over the backs and roast at a brisk fire, basting constantly with butter.

  2. Roast for about 18 to 20 minutes, longer if the pigeons are large.

  3. Serve with brown gravy and a side of parsley and butter on young watercress.

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 + watercresstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together469 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the lean, delicate meat that is the main component of the dish.
Butter
Bastes the birds and adds moisture and richness as it melts during roasting.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat and spice to the butter inserted into each bird.
Brown gravy
Adds savory moisture and depth to the roasted meat when served.

The step that matters

Basting constantly over a brisk fire. Pigeon meat is lean and dries out quickly at high heat, so frequent basting with butter keeps the surface moist while it browns.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, watercress):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, watercress. 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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