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Pigeons a LA Daube

Split pigeons cooked with bacon, ham, herbs and stock, then served with a mushroom sauce finished with orange or lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 34,118 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Cut off the pigeons' feet and pinions.

  2. Split the pigeons through the breast.

  3. Remove the livers from the pigeons and chop the livers.

Make the marinade

  1. Make a marinade with the scraped bacon, green onions (or mushrooms), pepper, salt, parsley and nutmeg.

  2. Fry the marinade for a few minutes.

  3. Heat the pigeons in the marinade until warmed through.

Grill and make the sauce

  1. Place a slice of ham on top of each pigeon on the grill.

  2. Turn the ham onto the pigeons when flipping them.

  3. For the sauce, combine stock, sweet basil, parsley, minced shallot and sliced mushrooms.

  4. Boil the sauce for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the pigeons breast side down with the ham on top.

  2. Pour the sauce over the pigeons with the juice of an orange or lemon.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + basiltop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + basiltop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Parsley + shallottop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,718 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,062 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the meat, which is browned and gently warmed through in the marinade.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savoury flavour to the marinade.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour and browning on the grill.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the other flavours.
Orange or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce for a few minutes. Brief boiling reduces the thin stock slightly and concentrates its flavour, while overlong boiling can make the herbs and shallot taste harsh. Adding the citrus juice after cooking keeps its bright acidity fresh.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, parsley, nutmeg, ham, basil, shallot, mushroom):

  1. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, nutmeg, ham, basil, shallot, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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