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Pigeon Soup

A savory soup made from pigeons, stock, vegetables, and livers, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Pigeon Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the pigeons

  1. Truss the pigeons as if for boiling and season them inside with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Dust the pigeons with flour and brown them in a saucepan with a little butter.

  3. Pour in the stock.

  4. Add the livers, gizzards, and vegetables.

  5. Simmer slowly for one hour.

Make the soup

  1. Remove the pigeons.

  2. Cut the meat from the breasts into small pieces.

  3. Bruise the bones.

  4. Return the bones to the soup and boil for an additional 30 minutes.

  5. Mix a little butter and flour with the livers.

  6. Stir this mixture into the soup to thicken it.

  7. Strain the soup.

  8. Return it to the saucepan with the pigeon pieces.

  9. Boil gently for 10 minutes, skimming if necessary.

  10. Serve the soup very hot in a tureen.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 flavours the stock as it simmers.
Flour
Coats the pigeons for browning and, mixed with butter, thickens the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and helps brown the pigeons at the start.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its flavour.
Livers (in the method)
Add richness and body to the soup once blended into the thickening.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour mixture into the soup. Flour thickens liquid only when it is cooked. Adding it raw or in lumps can leave the soup pasty or clumped, so stir it in smoothly and keep the soup simmering.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, butter, turnip, flour, parsley, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, butter, turnip, flour, parsley, 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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