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Pigeons Roasted

Roasted pigeons stuffed with veal, bacon fat, bread crumbs, and milk, served with butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Pigeons Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Prepare the stuffing by mixing ground veal, fat from bacon, bread crumbs soaked in milk, salt, and pepper.

Stuff and roast

  1. Stuff the pigeons with the veal mixture.

  2. Wrap the stuffed pigeons in thin slices of fat bacon and place them in a baking dish.

  3. Roast in the oven until cooked through, about 30-40 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with butter and parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Form the main body of the dish, cooking through as the centerpiece.
Ground veal
Forms a moist, savory stuffing that keeps the inside tender as the bird roasts.
Fat from bacon
Adds fat that bastes the birds and carries savory flavor into the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they bind the stuffing and keep it soft and moist.
Milk
Softens the bread crumbs so they blend into the stuffing with a tender texture.

The step that matters

Wrap the stuffed pigeons in bacon. The bacon fat must cover the birds so they do not dry out in the oven. Thin, even slices keep the lean breast moist and help it brown.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

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