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To Pickle Pigeons

A preserved pigeon dish pickled in wine vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Bone the pigeons, turn them inside out, and lard the inside.

  2. Season with allspice and coarse sea salt, then turn them back.

  3. Tie the neck and rump with thread.

  4. Boil the pigeons in water for 1-2 minutes to plump them, then remove and dry them well.

Pickle

  1. Prepare the pickle with equal parts white wine and white wine vinegar, adding white pepper, allspice, sliced ginger, nutmeg, and bay leaves.

  2. Bring the pickle to a boil and add the pigeons.

  3. Cook small pigeons for 15 minutes and large ones for 20 minutes, then remove the pigeons and wipe them.

  4. Let them cool.

  5. Remove the fat from the pickle and return the pigeons to the jar.

  6. Store in a stone jar, tied down with a bladder to keep out air.

Make the stuffing

  1. Mix hard-boiled egg yolks and marrow with sweet herbs, pepper, salt, and mace.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Main meat, cooked through in the pickle to become tender and flavoured.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
White wine
Adds liquid and mellow flavour to the pickle base.
Marrow
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Bind and enrich the stuffing with a smooth, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Cook the pigeons for the stated time. Cooking time depends on bird size, and overcooking toughens the meat while undercooking leaves it unsafe. Matching the time to small or large birds keeps the meat tender and fully cooked.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, white wine, vinegar, ginger, nutmeg, egg, pepper):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, white wine, vinegar, ginger, nutmeg, egg, pepper. 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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