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Broiled Pigeons or Squabs

Broiled pigeons or squabs seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and topped with salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Squab and pork work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 26 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Broiled Pigeons or Squabs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Split the pigeons or squabs down the back.

  2. Season well with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and plenty of butter.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the birds as you would chicken.

  2. Place a thin slice of salt pork over each bird 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. Squab + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  4. Squab + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons or squabs
Provide the meat that is cooked whole after splitting, giving the dish its main body.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness, helping the birds stay juicy and brown under the broiler.
Salt pork
Adds savory fat and flavor as it renders over each bird.

The step that matters

Broil the birds as you would chicken. Broiling is intense, direct heat, so the birds can scorch on the outside before the inside cooks through. Splitting them flat and watching the surface helps them cook evenly and brown without drying out.

“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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