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To Pickle Pigeons

A method of pickling pigeons in a hot brine of wine, vinegar, spices, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Bone the pigeons and turn them inside out.

  2. Lard the pigeons and season with allspice and coarse sea salt.

  3. Turn the pigeons back, tie the neck and rump with thread, and place them in boiling water for 1–2 minutes to plump.

  4. Remove and dry the pigeons.

Pickle and store

  1. Place the pigeons in a hot pickle made of equal parts white wine and white wine vinegar, with white pepper, allspice, sliced ginger, nutmeg, and bay leaves.

  2. Boil the mixture, then add the pigeons; small pigeons need 15 minutes, large ones 20 minutes.

  3. Remove the pigeons, wipe them, and let them cool.

  4. Once the pickle is cold, remove the fat and return the pigeons to the jar.

  5. Store the pigeons in a stone jar, tied down with a bladder to keep out the air.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the meat that is pickled and cooked gently in the spiced liquid.
White wine vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the pigeons and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
White wine
Forms the liquid base of the pickle, carrying the spices and softening the flavour of the vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and draws out moisture, helping to preserve it.
Allspice
Adds warm aromatic flavour to both the meat and the pickle.

The step that matters

Boiling the pigeons in the pickle for the stated time. Boiling for too long toughens the meat and makes it dry, while too short a time leaves it undercooked. Matching the time to the pigeon's size keeps the meat tender and safe.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, allspice, white wine, vinegar, ginger, nutmeg):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, allspice, white wine, vinegar, ginger, nutmeg. 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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