Name: Pigeons— Stewed
Ingredients: 1 small loaf of bread, grated; 1 pound fat bacon, chopped; 1 teaspoon thyme; 1 teaspoon parsley; 1/4 teaspoon pepper; 2 raw eggs; Beef gravy; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 tablespoon flour

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 ↓

Pigeons— Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the grated bread, chopped bacon, thyme, parsley, pepper, and raw eggs.
Stuff the mixture into the craws of the pigeons.
Lard the breasts of the pigeons and fry them until brown.
Place the pigeons in a stewpan with beef gravy and stew for 1 hour.
Thicken the gravy with butter rolled in flour.
Serve the pigeons on a platter and strain the gravy over them.

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.

Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,585 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

Swap the thyme

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

Nutmegfits about as well
Marjoramfits about as well
Tarragonfits about as well
Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, pepper, egg, beef, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.