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To Stew Pigeons

A stew of pigeons cooked with cabbage, milk, broth, cream, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Stew Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Soak the pigeons in water for 30 minutes.

  2. Slice the cabbage and boil it in a mixture of milk and water, then drain.

  3. Place some boiled cabbage at the bottom of a stew pan.

Stew the pigeons

  1. Season the pigeons with salt and pepper, then place them on the cabbage.

  2. Cover the pigeons with the remaining cabbage and add a little broth.

  3. Stew gently until the pigeons are tender.

  4. Stir in cream, butter, and flour for thickening, and boil for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the pigeons in the center with cabbage arranged around 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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 through slow, gentle stewing.
Cabbage
Forms a bed under and around the birds, adding bulk and mild, sweet flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce when boiled with the fats.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, softening its flavour.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the pigeons are tender. Pigeon meat is lean and firm, and it needs long, low, gentle heat to break down connective tissue. Boiling hard toughens the proteins and dries the meat, so the stew should barely simmer.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper, cream, butter, flour. 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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