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Stewed Pigeons

A stew of pigeons with olives, livers, onions, parsley, bread crumbs, butter, and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,649 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stewed Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and wipe the pigeons dry.

  2. Make a stuffing with olives, chopped livers, onion, and parsley.

  3. Moisten bread crumbs with melted butter and a little hot water.

  4. Season the mixture with salt, paprika, and currant jelly.

  5. Stuff the pigeons and truss them with twine.

Make the gravy and cook

  1. In a saucepan, heat butter and brown the pigeons.

  2. Stir in flour and gradually add boiling water until smooth.

  3. Add onion, carrots, celery, salt, and peppercorns.

  4. Cover tightly and cook slowly for 1 hour and 15 minutes until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve the pigeons on slices of toast.

  2. Strain and thicken the gravy to serve separately.

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. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 slow, covered cooking.
Pigeon livers
Add rich, savory flavor and moisture to the stuffing.
Stale bread crumbs
Soaked in melted butter, they absorb fat and keep the stuffing moist.
Butter
Browns the birds and adds richness to the dish.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth gravy.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tang to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Cook slowly with the lid on. Low, covered cooking lets the connective tissue in the pigeon break down gently, so the meat becomes tender. Higher heat or an uncovered pot can toughen the meat and dry out the gravy as it reduces.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, liver, onion, parsley, bread, butter, flour):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, liver, onion, parsley, bread, butter, 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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