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Potted Pigeons with Jelly

Potted pigeons stuffed with sausage, baked in a jar with broth, vinegar, and butter, served with jelly and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Pigeons with Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Clean the pigeons and split them in half down the back and breast.

  2. Wipe them dry, then dredge with pepper, salt, and ground allspice.

  3. Place a spoonful of sausage meat inside each pigeon and press the halves together.

Pot and bake

  1. Spread ½ pound of butter on the bottom of a small earthen jar.

  2. Lay the pigeons close together in the jar, add 1 cup of broth and a little vinegar.

  3. Cover the top with a lid made of flour and water paste.

  4. Set the jar in a pan of water in the oven at 400°F (200°C) and bake for 3 to 4 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve from the jar without disturbing the stuffing, with jelly mixed with gravy.

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 + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 during the long, gentle covered bake.
Sausage meat
Stuffing that adds richness and moisture to the lean birds as they cook.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, enriching the meat and the juices in the jar.
Broth
Supplies liquid that gently steams and moistens the pigeons during baking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat and sharpens the flavor.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity acidity to the gravy served alongside.

The step that matters

Bake gently under a sealed lid in a water bath. The sealed flour paste lid and the water bath keep the heat moderate and the moisture trapped, so the birds cook through and stay tender rather than drying out during the long bake.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, vinegar, pepper, allspice, 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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