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Potted Pigeons

Potted pigeons are pigeons stuffed, dredged, fried, stewed, and served with a gravy made from butter, spices, flour, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Stuff the pigeons with high-seasoned stuffing.

  2. Dredge the pigeons in flour.

  3. Fry them in butter until very brown.

Stew and make the gravy

  1. In a kettle, stew the pigeons for about three hours.

  2. To increase the gravy, add hot water, flour, and salt to the butter and spices used for frying.

  3. If more gravy is needed, add a large teacup of flour and water.

  4. Add the wine just before the pigeons are done.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through long stewing.
Flour
Coats the birds for browning and thickens the gravy.
Butter
Fries the pigeons to a deep brown and carries the spices into the gravy.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the gravy near the end of cooking.

The step that matters

Fry the pigeons until very brown. Browning through the Maillard reaction builds deep, savoury flavour in the butter and flour coating, which later colours and seasons the gravy. Pale frying leaves the gravy flat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (nutmeg, allspice, clove, flour, butter, wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, allspice, clove, flour, butter, wine. 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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