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Roast Pigeons

Roasted pigeons stuffed with bread crumbs, herbs, and salt pork, served with a red wine gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,075 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Roast Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Mix bread crumbs, marjoram, pepper, salt, cloves, onion, salt pork, and eggs in a bowl.

  2. Stuff the pigeons and sew them up.

  3. Truss tightly.

  4. Pin a strip of salt pork to the breast with a small needle.

Roast and make the gravy

  1. Roast the pigeons at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes, basting with butter.

  2. Combine drippings, meat stock, butter, flour, red wine, and cloves in a saucepan.

  3. Bring the gravy to a boil.

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. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together during roasting.
Bread crumbs
Add bulk to the stuffing and soak up juices for a moist filling.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour that bastes the birds as it melts.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, promoting browning and a rich skin.
Flour
Thickens the drippings and stock into a smooth gravy.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Roast and baste the pigeons. Basting with butter keeps the lean birds from drying out and helps the skin brown evenly. Roasting at the stated temperature for the full time lets the fat render and the meat cook through, so the surface browns before the interior dries.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, marjoram, pepper, clove, pork, egg, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, marjoram, pepper, clove, pork, egg, 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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