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To Stew Pigeons

A stew of pigeons cooked with butter, water, lemon peel, mace, parsley, and a thickened sauce of egg yolk, cream, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Stew Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and clean the pigeons, then cut them into quarters.

Stew

  1. In a stewpan, combine the pigeons, giblets, butter, water, lemon peel, mace, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cover the pan.

  3. Stew until the pigeons are tender.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolk, cream, and flour to thicken the sauce.

  2. Add the mixture to the stew.

  3. Let it cook for an additional 10 minutes before serving.

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

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (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 meat that becomes tender during the long, moist stewing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stewing liquid and sauce.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce and gives it a smooth, rich texture when gently heated.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, softening its flavour.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a sauce, helping it cling to the pigeon pieces.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream mixture to the stew. Egg yolk can curdle or scramble if it boils too hard. Stirring in the mixture off the boil, or with only gentle heat, keeps the sauce smooth and thick.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, parsley, pepper, egg, cream, 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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