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Guinea-fowls

A dish of pigeons cooked with butter, herbs, and bread crumbs, then broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Guinea-fowls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and prepare the pigeons by splitting their backs and flattening them slightly.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add parsley, green onions, salt, and pepper to the butter.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the pigeons to the saucepan and cook until half done.

  2. Remove the pigeons, roll them in bread crumbs, and place them on a grill. Broil the pigeons over moderate heat, turning occasionally until fully cooked.

  3. Serve with a maitre d'hotel sauce.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 is split and flattened so it cooks evenly.
Butter
Carries the herbs and seasoning and adds richness to the pigeons while they cook.
Bread crumbs
Coat the pigeons to form a crisp, browned surface under the grill.

The step that matters

Broil the pigeons until fully cooked. Pigeon meat is dense and the breast can dry out or stay underdone if heat is uneven. Turning them occasionally helps the heat reach the thick parts and browns the crumb coating evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, pepper, bread. 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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