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Pigeon Broth

A savory broth made from roasted pigeon meat, stock, onion, butter, breadcrumbs, and flavored with pepper, salt, and port or sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pigeon Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Remove the meat from the pigeons and set aside the bones and gravy.

  2. Combine the bones and gravy with 1 quart of stock and simmer over low heat.

Make and finish the soup

  1. Mince the pigeon meat and onion, then mix with butter and moistened breadcrumbs.

  2. Add the mixture to the stock and cook gently for 1 hour.

  3. Press the soup through a sieve, then season with pepper and salt.

  4. Stir in the port or sherry and serve with toasted bread.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 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

Pigeon meat
Provides the main savoury flavour and body of the broth.
Breadcrumbs
Thicken the broth and give it a smooth, body-rich texture when pressed.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded mouthfeel to the soup.
Port or sherry
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Press the soup through a sieve. Pressing breaks down the cooked breadcrumbs and meat so the soup becomes smooth. Skipping or rushing this leaves grainy bits and an uneven texture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, pepper, sherry, bread. 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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