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Roast Pigeons

Roast Pigeons is a dish of pigeons roasted with butter, pepper, salt, and flour, served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Clean the pigeons and stuff them like chickens, leaving the feet on.

  2. Dip the pigeons in scalding water to remove the skin.

  3. Tie the pigeons together below the breastbone or cut off the feet.

  4. If keeping the head, dip it in scalding water and pick it clean.

  5. Twist the wings back.

  6. Place the liver between the right wing and body.

  7. Tuck the head under the other wing.

  8. Rub the outside of each bird with a mixture of pepper and salt.

  9. Skewer the pigeons.

Roast

  1. Place some water in the dripping pan.

  2. Add a bit of butter to each bird.

  3. Roast the pigeons in front of a hot fire, basting frequently for about 30 minutes.

  4. Dredge the pigeons with wheat flour.

  5. Baste the pigeons with the butter in the pan.

  6. Turn the pigeons to brown them evenly.

  7. Remove the pigeons.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Set the pan over the fire.

  2. Make a thin batter with 1 teaspoon of wheat flour and cold water.

  3. Stir the batter into the boiling gravy.

  4. Continue stirring for a few minutes until it is brown.

  5. Strain the gravy into a tureen.

  6. Serve the gravy with the pigeons.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Pepper + wheattop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together984 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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
Form the main meat, which is stuffed, roasted and basted until browned.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the birds when basted over them.
Wheat flour
Dredged on the birds and mixed into batter to thicken and darken the gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring the batter into the boiling gravy. Flour added to hot liquid can clump, so the batter must be thin and stirred steadily. Continued stirring lets the starch swell evenly and thicken the gravy smoothly.

“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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