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Entree of Pigeons with Truffles

A dish of roasted pigeons stuffed with forcemeat, larded with bacon or fat, served with lamb sweetbreads and truffle sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Truffle and lamb work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 134 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Entree of Pigeons with Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Bone the pigeons.

  2. Stuff the pigeons with well-seasoned forcemeat.

  3. Blanch the pigeons.

  4. Lard the pigeons.

  5. Cover the larding with paper.

Roast and glaze

  1. Roast the pigeons until cooked through.

  2. Glaze the larding before serving.

Plate and serve

  1. Place the pigeons in the center of a dish.

  2. Surround the pigeons with 6 larded, braised, and glazed lamb sweetbreads.

  3. Serve with truffle sauce underneath.

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. Truffle + lambtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Sauce + lambtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together925 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  3. Truffle + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,490 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Forcemeat
Fills the boned birds, adding moisture and a seasoned, tender texture as it cooks.
Larding
Bacon or fat laid over the lean breast, adding moisture and flavour during roasting.
Truffle sauce
Adds earthy aroma and richness to the dish, served beneath the birds.
Lamb sweetbreads
Provide a rich, tender contrast to the pigeon, with their soft texture and fat.

The step that matters

Covering the larding with paper. Fat laid over the birds can scorch or brown too fast in the oven before the pigeon is cooked through. A paper cover shields the larding from direct heat, letting the meat cook evenly while the fat stays moist.

“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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