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Roasted Pigeons

A dish of pigeons roasted with bacon, spinach, herbs, and a wine gravy, served with pickled mushrooms and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roasted Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Boil the pigeons for 15 minutes.

  2. Boil the bacon and place it in the center of a serving dish.

  3. Stew the spinach and arrange it around the bacon.

  4. Place the pigeons on the spinach.

  5. Garnish with parsley crisped by the fire.

  6. Season the pigeons with salt, pepper, cloves, mace, and sweet herbs.

  7. Wrap the seasoning in butter and place it inside the pigeons.

  8. Tie the vent and roast the pigeons halfway.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine gravy, white wine, peppercorns, mace, lemon, sweet herbs, and onion.

  2. Stew the pigeons gently until cooked through.

  3. Remove the pigeons and strain the sauce, skimming off fat.

  4. Thicken the sauce in the pan and return it to the pigeons with pickled mushrooms and oysters.

  5. Stew for 5 minutes and serve with sauce over the pigeons.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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 cooked gently to stay tender and moist.
Bacon
Adds savory fat and salty flavor that seasons the dish as it cooks.
Butter
Carries the seasoning and adds richness that keeps the meat moist during cooking.
Gravy
Forms the base of the sauce, adding body and savory depth.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.
Oysters
Add a briny, savory flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stew the pigeons gently until cooked through. High heat toughens meat and dries it out. Gentle stewing in the sauce cooks the birds through while keeping them moist and tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, parsley, pepper, clove, white wine, lemon, onion):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, parsley, pepper, clove, white wine, lemon, onion. 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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