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Pigeons with Petit Pois

Pigeons cooked with peas in a savory gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pigeons with Petit Pois

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Kill and feather the pigeons without breaking their skins.

  2. Singe the pigeons to remove any remaining feathers.

  3. Wash the pigeons in cold water three to four times.

  4. Cut the pigeons in halves and dredge with salt and pepper; let sit for an hour.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat ghee or lard in a pan and fry the pigeons until rich brown, turning them over.

  2. Add beef stock and simmer until the pigeons are tender.

  3. Pour in the tin of petit pois with their gravy and serve hot.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Ghee + beeftop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Ghee + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together690 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the meat, which becomes tender through simmering in the stock.
Ghee or lard
Fat for frying that carries heat and helps the pigeons brown richly.
Beef stock
Liquid that simmers the pigeons until tender and forms the gravy.
Petit pois
Small peas that add sweetness and body, served with their gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the pigeons until rich brown. Browning in hot fat creates deep flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale or crowded pieces miss this flavour, and turning them keeps the colour even.

“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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