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Pigeons in Jelly

Pigeons are cooked in a broth with mace, herbs, and bacon, then set in a clear jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and white pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Pigeons in Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the knuckle of veal or calf's foot to make broth.

  2. Combine the broth, mace, sweet herbs, white pepper, lemon peel, and bacon in a pan.

Cook the pigeons

  1. Add the pigeons and bake until cooked through.

  2. Let the pigeons cool in the broth.

  3. Remove the pigeons and cover them to preserve color.

Clear and set the jelly

  1. Boil the egg whites to clear the jelly.

  2. Strain the jelly through a cloth.

  3. Pour the clear jelly over and around the pigeons.

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. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Mace + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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 is cooked gently and then set in jelly.
Knuckle of veal or calf's foot
Releases gelatin into the broth, which sets into the aspic.
Egg whites
Bind impurities in the jelly so it can be strained clear.
Lemon peel
Adds bright aromatic flavor to the broth.
Bacon
Adds savory, smoky flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Clearing the jelly with egg whites. Egg whites coagulate and trap cloudy particles as they heat, so the broth can be strained clear. If the jelly is stirred or boiled too hard during clearing, the whites break up and the aspic stays cloudy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, white pepper, lemon, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, white pepper, lemon, egg. 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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