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To Pot Pigeons

A dish of pigeons roasted in butter, seasoned with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Pot Pigeons

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Clean the pigeons thoroughly and remove the pinions.

  2. Dry them well and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Stuff each pigeon with a lump of butter.

Bake

  1. Place the pigeons in a pot and cover with more butter.

  2. Tie the pot down and set it in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).

Finish and pot

  1. Once cooked, drain the gravy and season the pigeons again.

  2. Transfer them to potting pots and cover with clarified butter when cold.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. 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
The main protein, which becomes tender and flavourful as it cooks slowly in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, basting the birds as they cook and sealing them when potted.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic note that complements the rich meat and butter.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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