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Squabs or Pigeons Roasted

Roasted squabs or pigeons with fat pork, butter, and optional cranberries, served on toast with pan butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Squab and pork work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 26 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Squabs or Pigeons Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the birds

  1. Pluck, draw, and clean the pigeons, wiping them with a wet cloth.

  2. Truss the pigeons neatly, using wooden toothpicks to skewer the wings and legs in place.

  3. Fasten a slice of fat pork over each breast and add a piece of butter inside each bird.

Roast

  1. Lay the pigeons in a roasting pan with 2 tablespoons of butter and 1 tablespoon of boiling water.

  2. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  3. Baste frequently and roast for about 15 minutes, depending on size.

Serve

  1. Remove the fat pork and serve the pigeons on toast moistened with the pan butter and a little strong broth.

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. Squab + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Squab + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Squabs or tender pigeons
Provide the main meat, which is the dish's centrepiece.
Fat pork
Bastes the breast as it melts, helping keep the lean meat moist and flavourful.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps the skin brown in the roasting pan.

The step that matters

Baste frequently and roast for about 15 minutes, depending on size.. Pigeon breast is lean and dries out and toughens quickly once overcooked. Basting keeps the surface moist and the timing should be judged by the bird's size.

“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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