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Pigeon Cutlets with Olives

Pigeon cutlets seasoned with pepper and salt, coated in egg yolk and breadcrumbs, broiled and served with a sauce of olives, onions, carrots, ham, broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pigeon Cutlets with Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Singe, draw, and wash the pigeons.

  2. Dry them, cut off the necks, wings, and feet, then bone them, leaving the legs on.

  3. Push the legs through the skin to form cutlets.

  4. Lay the cutlets in a pan with melted butter and cook for 8 minutes on each side.

  5. Remove the cutlets to a plate, press them slightly, and set aside to cool.

  6. Trim the cutlets neatly 15 minutes before serving.

  7. Season with pepper and salt.

Coat and broil the cutlets

  1. Mix the egg yolk with cold melted butter.

  2. Dip the cutlets into the mixture.

  3. Cover with bread crumbs.

  4. Place the cutlets on a hot broiler and broil until light brown on both sides.

Prepare the olives

  1. Remove the pits from the olives and soak them in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Place the olives in boiling water and cook for 5 minutes.

  3. Drain and cool in cold water.

  4. Dry and stuff with chicken or veal forcemeat.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a saucepan, melt butter and add chopped onion, grated carrot, finely cut ham, bay leaf, and whole peppercorns. Cook for 5 minutes.

  2. Add flour, stir, and cook for 3 minutes.

  3. Then add white broth and salt, cooking slowly for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the sauce into a clean saucepan, add the olives, and cook slowly for 8 minutes.

  5. Glaze the pigeon cutlets with a little glaze.

  6. Dress on a hot dish. Arrange the olives on each side.

  7. Serve the sauce in a sauce bowl.

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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the lean, mildly gamey meat that forms the cutlets.
Egg yolk
Binds the melted butter so the bread crumbs adhere to the cutlets.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden-brown coating during broiling.
Olives
Add a salty, tangy flavour that contrasts the rich meat and sauce.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth sauce with the butter.
White broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the aromatics' flavour.

The step that matters

Broiling the coated cutlets. Bread crumbs brown quickly under high heat while the thin cutlets cook through. Watch closely, because the Maillard browning that gives color and flavor can turn to burnt bitterness within moments.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, egg, bread, olive, onion, ham):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, egg, bread, olive, onion, ham. 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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