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Pigeon Pudding

A pudding made with pigeons, beef steak, egg yolks, spices, and gravy, wrapped in rich paste and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pigeon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line a basin with rich paste, ½ inch thick.

  2. Place 3 pigeons inside the basin.

  3. Add ½ pound of beef steak, 3 hard-boiled egg yolks, salt, pepper, and spices.

  4. Pour in gravy and brown stock to half the depth.

Cook

  1. Cover with paste and tie in a cloth.

  2. Boil the pudding for about 3 hours.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 and rich flavour of the filling.
Beef steak
Adds meaty flavour and body to the filling as it cooks.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help thicken it with a smooth, rich texture.
Rich paste
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and holds in moisture during boiling.

The step that matters

Covering and tying the pudding. The cloth must be tied snugly over the paste so the pudding holds its shape and the filling stays moist during the long boil. A loose seal lets water seep in and dilutes the flavour.

“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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