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To Roast Pigeons

Roasted pigeons stuffed with parsley, butter, breadcrumbs, and optional liver, served with melted butter and fried breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Roast Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Clean the pigeons by removing the entrails and wiping them inside.

  2. Soak the pigeons in several waters.

Stuff and season

  1. Stuff each pigeon with chopped, parboiled parsley, butter, a few bread crumbs, and chopped liver if desired.

  2. Season the pigeons with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the pigeons for 20 to 25 minutes.

  2. Dust with flour and baste with fresh butter.

  3. Serve with melted butter or parsley and butter, garnished with fried bread crumbs or slices of bitter orange.

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

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 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
Provide the main meat, which cooks through in a short, dry-heat roast.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and bastes the birds to promote gentle browning.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices inside the cavity, keeping the stuffing moist and lightly textured.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma that balances the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Roast the pigeons for 20 to 25 minutes. Pigeon meat is lean and dense, so overcooking dries it out quickly. Basting with butter adds moisture and helps the skin brown evenly during the short roast.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, butter, bread, 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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