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Stewed Pigeon

A stew of pigeons cooked with bacon, carrot, onion, sugar, parsley, and stock or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stewed Pigeon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Tie the pigeons in shape.

  2. Place pieces of bacon at the bottom of a stew pan.

  3. Lay the pigeons side by side in the pan.

Stew

  1. Add the sliced carrot, onion, sugar, and parsley.

  2. Pour enough stock or hot water to cover the pigeons.

  3. Place thin slices of bacon over the tops of each pigeon.

  4. Add boiling water as necessary.

  5. Let them simmer until very tender.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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, slow simmering.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the stewing liquid and the meat.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aromatic flavor to the stewing liquid.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and flavor to the stew liquid.

The step that matters

Let them simmer until very tender. Pigeon meat toughens if boiled hard; a gentle, steady simmer breaks down connective tissue slowly, so the meat becomes tender without falling apart.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, clove, sugar, parsley):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, clove, sugar, parsley. 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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