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Pigeons in Jelly

Pigeons cooked in a clarified veal broth jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and white pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Pigeons in Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Boil the knuckle of veal (or calf's or neat's foot) and save some of the broth.

  2. In a pan, combine the broth with mace, sweet herbs, white pepper, lemon peel, bacon, and pigeons.

Cook and cover the pigeons

  1. Season the pigeons to your liking before baking.

  2. Bake the pigeons and let them cool.

  3. Once done, remove the pigeons from the broth and cover them to preserve their color.

Clear the jelly

  1. Ensure all fat is removed before clearing the jelly.

  2. To clear the jelly, boil the broth with the egg whites, then strain it through a thick cloth dipped in boiling water.

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. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Mace + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Veal knuckle
Releases gelatin into the broth, which sets the jelly.
Egg whites
Bind impurities in the boiling broth so they can be strained out, clearing the jelly.
Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which is cooked and then set in the clear jelly.
Bacon
Adds savoury, smoky flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Clear the jelly. Egg whites must be boiled into the broth and the jelly strained through a thick cloth dipped in boiling water. Any fat left in the broth clouds the jelly, so it must be fully removed first.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, white pepper, lemon, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, white pepper, lemon, egg. 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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