Why it works: Mace and white pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,695 recipes mention both. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓
Pigeons in Jelly, a Beautiful Dish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the broth
Save some of the liquor from boiling veal or prepare broth from a calf's or neat's foot.
Remove all fat from the broth before clearing.
Cook the pigeons
In a pan, combine the broth with mace, sweet herbs, white pepper, lemon peel, bacon, and pigeons.
Leave the heads and feet on the pigeons, but clip the nails close.
Season the pigeons to your liking before baking.
Truss the pigeons and prop the necks up with skewers to maintain a natural appearance before baking.
Bake the pigeons and let them cool.
Once baked, remove the pigeons from the liquor and cover them to preserve their color.
Clear and set the jelly
Clear the jelly by boiling with the whites of two eggs, then strain through a thick cloth dipped in boiling water.
Pour the jelly over and around the pigeons.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,695 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
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White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together1,658 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together4,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Veal + macetop 18% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together3,761 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Mace + lemontop 18% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together6,315 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pigeons
- The main meat, which is cooked gently in the seasoned liquor until tender.
- Veal knuckle liquor or broth
- Collagen from the bones turns to gelatin as it cools, so the liquid sets into a jelly.
- Egg whites
- As they cook, they trap cloudy particles so the jelly can be strained clear.
- Lean bacon
- Adds savoury, salty flavour and some fat to the cooking liquor.
- Mace
- Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the broth.
- Lemon peel
- Adds bright citrus aroma that lifts the rich meat and jelly.
The step that matters
Clearing the jelly. Boiling the broth with egg whites lets the whites trap cloudy particles and rise as a foam. Straining through a cloth dipped in boiling water then leaves the jelly clear. Skipping the fat removal or boiling roughly leaves it cloudy.
“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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