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Stew Inc

A stew of pigeons cooked with spices, butter, flour, wine, lemon, onion, and pickled mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stew Inc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Make a seasoning of pepper, salt, cloves, mace, sweet herbs, and butter rolled in flour.

  2. Stuff the seasoning into the pigeons.

  3. Tie the necks and vents of the pigeons.

  4. Half roast the pigeons.

Make the stew

  1. Stew the pigeons in gravy, white wine, whole pepper, mace, lemon, sweet herbs, and onion until done.

  2. Remove the pigeons and strain the sauce through a sieve.

  3. Skim the sauce and thicken it with butter rolled in flour.

  4. Add the pigeons and pickled mushrooms to the sauce and stew for about 5 minutes.

  5. Serve the pigeons on a dish with the sauce poured over 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Main protein; stewing in gravy makes the meat tender and tasty.
Flour
Rolled into butter to thicken the sauce, giving it body and a smooth texture.
Butter
Enriches the seasoning and, kneaded with flour, thickens the sauce while adding richness.
Gravy
Forms the stew's liquid base, supplying most of the sauce's savoury flavour.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and balances its savouriness.
Lemon
Contributes acidity and aroma that lift the rich, savoury sauce.

The step that matters

Half roast the pigeons. Only partly roasting before stewing sets the surface and renders some fat, so the birds keep their shape and the sauce stays clean. Overcooking at this stage leaves the meat dry once it finishes in the liquid.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, clove, butter, flour, white wine, lemon, onion):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, butter, flour, white wine, lemon, onion. 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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