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Pigeons in Jelly

Pigeons in Jelly is a dish of pigeons cooked in a clarified stock jelly with herbs and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and white pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Pigeons in Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine the jelly, sweet herbs, mace, white pepper, bacon, and lemon peel in a stewpan.

  2. Add the trussed pigeons, seasoning to your taste.

  3. Bake the pigeons until done.

Finish the pigeons

  1. Remove them from the liquid and keep covered to preserve color.

  2. Remove the fat from the liquid.

Clarify the jelly

  1. Boil the whites of 2 eggs with the jelly to clarify it.

  2. Strain the jelly through a cloth dipped in boiling water to remove impurities.

Serve

  1. Pour the clarified jelly over and around the pigeons.

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. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Mace + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Jelly made from calf's foot or veal stock
Gelatin sets as it cools, giving the dish its firm, glossy coating and moisture.
Eggs (in the method)
Whites coagulate when boiled, trapping impurities so the jelly can be strained clear.
Lean bacon
Adds savory flavor and a little fat to the cooking liquid.
Mace
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavor to the jelly.
Lemon peel
Adds bright aromatic oils that lift the rich flavor of the jelly.

The step that matters

Clarifying the jelly. Boiling the egg whites with the jelly lets them coagulate and trap cloudy particles. Straining through a cloth dipped in boiling water then removes them, so the jelly stays clear rather than murky.

“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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