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Pigeon-soup, or Game-soup

A clear stock of beef or mutton with turnips and onions, enriched with pigeon or partridge, seasoned with pepper, salt, mace, and toasted soaked sippets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pigeon-soup, or Game-soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil beef or mutton with turnips, onions, and water until reduced to 3 quarts.

  2. Strain the stock.

  3. Thicken the stock with butter kneaded into browned flour.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, and mace.

  5. Skim off any scum that rises.

Prepare and brown the birds

  1. Truss the pigeons or partridges.

  2. Season them inside with pepper and salt.

  3. Flatten them on the breast.

  4. Dredge the birds with flour and brown them in a frying pan.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew the pigeons in the stock for 25 minutes.

  2. Add toasted soaked sippets to the tureen.

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. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

Beef or mutton scrag and shanks
Gives the stock its body and rich meaty flavour as it simmers down.
Butter kneaded into browned flour
Thickens the stock, giving it a smooth, lightly body-rich consistency.
Flour
Coats the birds so they brown well in the pan and the surface crisps.
Pigeons or partridges
Provide the main poultry flavour and tender meat that stews in the stock.

The step that matters

Skim off any scum that rises. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the stock simmers. Removing it keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting rather than cloudy or greasy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, onion, liver, flour, butter, mace):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, onion, liver, flour, butter, mace. 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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