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Pigeon Soup

A savory soup made with pigeons, ham, vegetables, and seasonings.

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 ↓

Pigeon Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Mix the butter and flour together until well combined. Add the chopped ham to the mixture.

  2. Place the mixture in a pot with the clear soup and the fried pigeons.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add thyme, parsley, celery, leek, and bay leaf.

  2. Cook for one hour, then strain the soup.

  3. Cut the meat into small dice and return it to the soup.

  4. Stir in the cooked green peas, sliced carrots, white wine, pepper, and salt.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Thyme + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

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

  5. Celery + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the soup by swelling in liquid when combined with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and carries the flour into a smooth base.
Pigeons
Provide the main meat and savory flavor of the soup.
Clear soup
Forms the liquid base that the other ingredients simmer in.
Leek
Adds mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the broth.
White wine
Adds acidity and brightness to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Cook for one hour, then strain the soup. A gentle simmer lets the pigeon and aromatics release flavor into the broth; a hard boil can cloud the soup and toughen the meat, so keep the liquid at a steady, low simmer.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, ham, thyme, parsley, celery, leek):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, ham, thyme, parsley, celery, leek. 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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