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Preserve

Pigeons Stewed

A stew of pigeons seasoned with salt pork, stuffing, flour, water, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pigeons Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dress the pigeons and stuff each with a slice of salt pork and a small ball of stuffing.

  2. Flour the pigeons well and place them in the bottom of a pot.

Stew

  1. Cover the pigeons with water and add a piece of butter.

  2. Let them stew for 1 hour and 15 minutes if young, or longer if old.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Pork + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, moist stewing.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the meat and stuffing as it cooks.
Stuffing
Adds bulk and flavor inside the birds while they cook.
Flour
Coats the pigeons so the surface thickens the cooking liquid and helps it brown.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the cooking liquid for flavor and a silkier sauce.

The step that matters

Let them stew for 1 hour and 15 minutes if young, or longer if old.. Pigeon meat toughens if cooked too briefly and needs slow, moist heat to break down connective tissue. Older birds have tougher muscle, so judging by age and checking tenderness prevents dry or chewy meat.

“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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