Name: Boiled Pigeons and Bacon
Ingredients: 6 young pigeons; milk; water; 1 square piece of bacon; plain melted butter; stewed spinach; parsley

Why it works: Spinach and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,025 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Boiled Pigeons and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the pigeons

Wash the pigeons clean and tuck their legs under their wings.
Boil the pigeons in a mixture of milk and water for 20 minutes.

Prepare the bacon

Boil the bacon, remove the skin, and brown it.

Plate and serve

Place the bacon in the center of a serving dish and arrange the pigeons around it.
Add lumps of stewed spinach and pour melted butter over the pigeons.
Serve with parsley and additional melted butter on the side.

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.

Spinach + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,025 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Milk + spinachtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together914 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Butter + spinachtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,583 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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 gently in the milk and water mixture.
Bacon: Adds savory, salty flavor and a browned surface to the dish.
Milk: Adds richness and mild sweetness to the cooking liquid.
Plain melted butter: Adds fat and richness, giving the pigeons moisture and a smooth flavor.