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Compote of Pigeons, and Truffles

A compote of pigeons stuffed with forced meat and truffles, simmered with ham, shallots, mace, bay leaves, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Compote of Pigeons, and Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Draw the legs of the pigeons in.

  2. Singe them.

  3. Fill the pigeons with forced meat and a peeled raw truffle in each.

  4. Skewer the pigeons and cover the breasts with bacon, tying it on.

Simmer

  1. In a stew-pan, combine the giblets, slices of ham, shallots, mace, bay leaves, and stock.

  2. Add the pigeons.

  3. Cover with paper.

  4. Simmer gently for 30 minutes until tender.

  5. Remove the pigeons.

  6. Cover them while preparing the sauce.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the cooking liquid.

  2. Skim off the fat.

  3. Melt butter in a stew-pan.

  4. Add flour to thicken the sauce.

  5. Stir in the strained liquid.

  6. Add sherry wine and boil.

  7. Slice in a few truffles.

  8. Remove the bacon and skewer from the pigeons.

  9. Place the pigeons in the sauce to keep warm.

  10. Season with cayenne pepper.

  11. Serve the pigeons on a dish with sauce over them.

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. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Truffle + hamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together516 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Butter and flour 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 during gentle simmering.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour as the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the strained cooking liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter.
Raw truffles
Add a strong earthy aroma to the stuffing and the finished sauce.
Bacon
Covers the breasts, adding fat and savoury flavour that keeps the meat moist.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and depth to the sauce once boiled.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 30 minutes until tender. Vigorous boiling toughens the meat and clouds the stock, so a gentle simmer keeps the pigeons tender and the liquid clear for the sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, truffle, ham, shallot, butter, flour, sherry):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, truffle, ham, shallot, butter, flour, sherry. 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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