Name: To Cook Pigeons or Partridges
Ingredients: 2 pigeons or partridges; 2 tablespoons butter or lard; 2 onions, quartered; Salt, to taste; Pepper, to taste; 2 tablespoons flour; Hot water, enough to cover the birds

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Cook Pigeons or Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the birds

Fry the birds in butter or lard until slightly browned.
Remove the birds and sauté the quartered onions in the remaining gravy for a short time.

Stew

Place the birds and onions in a stew-pan with enough hot water to cover them.
Season with salt and pepper, then cook for one hour.
Add flour to the gravy half an hour before serving.

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.

Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together32,460 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons or partridges: Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long slow simmering.
Butter or lard: Fat that browns the birds and carries flavour into the gravy.
Onions: Softened in the pan gravy, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the stew.
Flour: Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy as it is added near the end.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the gravy. Flour needs time in hot liquid to thicken smoothly. Adding it half an hour before serving lets it cook out and thicken without lumps or a raw taste.

Swap the onion

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

Shallotfits better
Chivefits better
Capsicumfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, 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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To Cook Pigeons or Partridges