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Potted Pigeons

Potted pigeons are pigeons stewed with pork, onion, salt, pepper, and clove, served on crackers with optional dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Potted Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Stuff the pigeons as you would for roasting.

  2. In a pan, brown a few slices of pork and the pigeons.

  3. Brown a few slices of onion in the same pan.

Stew and serve

  1. Cover the pigeons with water, adding salt, pepper, and pounded clove.

  2. Stew until the pigeons are tender.

  3. Serve on crackers in a deep dish, adding dumplings if desired.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Pork + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing in liquid.
Slices of pork
Browning adds savoury flavour and fat to the pan that carries into the stew.
Slices of onion
Browning adds sweetness and savoury depth to the stewing liquid.
Pounded clove
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the stewed liquid.

The step that matters

Brown the pigeons and pork before stewing. Browning creates Maillard flavour compounds on the surface of the meat and pan. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the stew tasting flat, because those browned bits dissolve into the liquid as it simmers.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, clove. 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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