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Boiled Pigeons and Bacon

A dish of boiled pigeons served with bacon, spinach, butter, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,025 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Boiled Pigeons and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and boil

  1. Wash the pigeons clean and tuck their legs under their wings.

  2. Boil the pigeons in a mixture of milk and water for 20 minutes.

  3. Prepare the bacon by boiling it, then remove the skin and brown it.

Arrange and serve

  1. Place the bacon in the center of a serving dish and arrange the pigeons around it.

  2. Add lumps of stewed spinach and pour melted butter over the pigeons.

  3. Serve with parsley and additional butter on the side.

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. Spinach + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Milk + spinachtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + spinachtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,583 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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 turns tender during the gentle boil.
Bacon
Adds salty, savoury flavour and browning on its surface.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture when poured over the pigeons and served on the side.
Milk
Adds mild richness and softness to the boiling liquid.

The step that matters

Browning the bacon. Bacon must be boiled first so it cooks through, then browned so its surface turns golden and savoury. Browning relies on the Maillard reaction, which needs a dry, hot surface, so the bacon should be patted dry before it hits the pan.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, parsley. 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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