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Pigeons Compote

A stew of pigeons stuffed with a breadcrumb and bacon mixture, simmered in brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Pigeons Compote

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Grate the crumb of the loaf.

  2. Scrape the bacon.

  3. Chop the parsley, thyme, eschalots, lemon peel, and nutmeg.

  4. Season the mixture with pepper and salt.

  5. Mix the mixture with the eggs.

Stuff and fry the pigeons

  1. Truss the pigeons for boiling.

  2. Stuff the mixture into the pigeons' craws.

  3. Lard them down the breast.

  4. Fry the pigeons until brown.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew them in good brown gravy for 45 minutes.

  2. Thicken the gravy with a piece of butter rolled in flour.

  3. Strain the gravy over the pigeons when serving.

  4. Add forcemeat balls around them.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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 that becomes tender during long stewing.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together inside the birds.
Penny loaf crumb
Absorbs moisture and gives the stuffing body and a light texture.
Bacon fat
Adds fat and richness that keeps the stuffing and meat moist.
Flour
Thickens the brown gravy so it coats the pigeons.

The step that matters

Fry the pigeons until brown. Browning develops rich, savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction, which the gravy then carries. Pale birds give a flat, washed-out stew.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, thyme, lemon, pepper, egg, butter, flour):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, thyme, lemon, pepper, egg, butter, flour. 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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