Name: Pigeons a LA Crapaudine
Ingredients: 2 pigeons; oil; coarse sea salt; black pepper; 2 tablespoons parsley, chopped; 2 tablespoons chives, chopped; bread crumbs; for sauce: vinegar, shallots, black pepper, coarse sea salt, butter

Why it works: Chive and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Pigeons a LA Crapaudine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Split the pigeons lengthwise and flatten them without breaking the skin.
Rub the pigeons with oil and season with salt, pepper, parsley, and chives.
Sprinkle bread crumbs over the pigeons.

Cook and serve

Broil the pigeons over a slow fire.
Serve with a sauce made from vinegar, shallots, pepper, salt, and warmed butter.

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.

Chive + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together450 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,150 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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 is flattened so it cooks evenly under direct heat.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, browned crust on the surface while the meat stays moist beneath.
Butter: Adds richness and fat to the warmed sauce, giving it a smooth texture.
Vinegar: Adds acidity to the sauce, balancing the richness of the butter and pigeon.

The step that matters

Broil over a slow fire. Pigeon meat is lean and can dry out or burn before the crumbs brown. Gentle, steady heat cooks the flattened birds through while the crumb crust toasts without scorching.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, parsley, bread, sauce, vinegar, shallot, butter):

Mustardfits about as well
Chivethe original
Capsicumfits about as well
Horseradishfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, bread, sauce, vinegar, shallot, butter. 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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Pigeons a LA Crapaudine