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Potted Pigeons

Potted pigeons are pigeons simmered in stock with bacon, carrot, onion, and served on buttered toast with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potted Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and simmer

  1. Clean and truss the pigeons, then dredge them with flour, salt, and pepper.

  2. Place the pigeons in a stew pan on slices of bacon, with the breasts facing up.

  3. Add the diced carrot and onion, then cover with stock or hot water.

  4. Let the pigeons simmer until tender.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, then stir in the flour.

  2. Gradually add the liquid and vegetables left in the pan.

  3. Season the gravy to taste with salt and pepper.

  4. Serve each pigeon on a thin slice of buttered toast.

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 + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + carrottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 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
The main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering.
Flour
Dredging coats the birds, and flour mixed with butter thickens the gravy.
Slices of bacon
Fat rendered under the birds adds savoury flavour and moisture.
Butter
Fat that combines with flour to form a roux, enriching the gravy.

The step that matters

Let the pigeons simmer until tender. Pigeon breast is lean and can turn tough if cooked hard or too fast. A gentle simmer breaks down connective tissue slowly, keeping the meat moist and tender.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, carrot, 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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