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Mock Pigeons

Veal fillets stuffed with breadcrumbs and ham, baked in stock and served with a browned flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mock Pigeons

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.

Prepare the rolls

  1. Remove the bone from the veal fillets and flatten them with a hatchet.

  2. Spread the fillets with a mixture of breadcrumbs and chopped ham, seasoned well.

  3. Roll the meat up tightly and bind into oblong rolls with kitchen string.

Bake

  1. Place the rolls in a dripping pan and pour boiling stock over them.

  2. Cover with a pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for nearly 2 hours, basting with gravy.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Once done, transfer to a hot dish and thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  2. Season the gravy with pepper, salt, and tomato ketchup, then boil for 1 minute.

  3. Pour part of the gravy over the rolls and serve the rest in a separate dish.

  4. Carefully remove the strings from the meat before serving.

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 + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  4. Veal + tomatotop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together709 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal fillets
Forms the main meat body that is rolled and holds the stuffing while cooking.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb juices and add body to the stuffing so it stays moist inside the rolls.
Chopped ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the stuffing.
Boiling stock
Provides liquid for gentle braising and the base for the gravy.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.

The step that matters

Bake covered with basting. Cooking the rolls covered in liquid for a long time keeps the lean veal tender. Basting returns juices to the surface so the meat does not dry out or toughen.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, pepper, flour, ketchup):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, pepper, flour, ketchup. 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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