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Pigeons, with Green Peas

A stew of pigeons simmered with green peas, broth, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pigeons, with Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Clean and split the pigeons in half.

  2. In a stewpan, heat the butter or lard until melted.

  3. Add the pigeons and brown them well.

Cook and finish

  1. Stir in the green peas, broth, garnish herbs, and flour.

  2. Cook over low heat until done.

  3. Before serving, mix the additional butter with flour and add it to the dish.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Peas + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,837 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
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender as it cooks slowly in the stew.
Butter or lard
Browns the pigeons and adds richness to the stewing liquid.
Green peas
Add sweetness and body to the stew as they soften.
Broth
Supplies the cooking liquid that moistens and flavours the stew.
Flour
Thickens the stewing liquid so it becomes a light sauce.

The step that matters

Brown the pigeons well. Browning creates deep, savoury flavours through the Maillard reaction. Pigeons must be dry and browned in hot fat, in batches if needed, or they will steam and taste flat.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Macadamia nutfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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