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Pigeons Potted

A pot of pigeons cooked with cracker crumbs, butter, onion, and thick cream, served with barberry or currant jelly, stewed squash, and red onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pigeons Potted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Prepare the pigeons as for baking. Tie the legs down with string under the tail.

  2. Stuff the pigeons with salted cracker crumbs softened with hot water. Add butter, pepper, chopped onion, and moisten with thick cream.

Brown and simmer

  1. Heat pork fat and fry an onion until hot. Brown the pigeons all over in the fat.

  2. Place the browned pigeons in a stewpan. Add boiling water to nearly cover them. Let them simmer until tender.

  3. Remove the pigeons to a hot dish.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Brown butter together in a stewpan. Thicken the remaining liquid with flour. Pour the brown gravy over the pigeons.

  2. Serve hot with barberry or currant jelly, stewed squash, and red onions in melted butter.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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
The main protein; simmering in liquid until tender gives a soft texture.
Salted cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body to the stuffing.
Thick cream
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing.
Butter
Adds fat, richness and a nutty browned flavour to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy.
Pork fat
Conducts heat for browning the pigeons, adding savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the pigeons all over. Browning creates the Maillard flavour and colour that the gravy builds on. Pale birds give a flat, grey-tasting dish, so they should be evenly seared before simmering.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, onion, cream, pork, 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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