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To Pickle Pigeons

A preserved pigeon dish pickled in a spiced wine vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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.

  2. Turn the pigeons inside out.

  3. Lard the pigeons.

  4. Season the pigeons with allspice and coarse sea salt.

  5. Turn the pigeons back.

  6. Tie the neck and rump with thread.

  7. Boil the pigeons in water for 1–2 minutes to plump.

  8. Dry the pigeons well.

Pickle and cook

  1. Prepare a pickle with equal parts white wine and white wine vinegar, adding white pepper, allspice, sliced ginger, nutmeg, and hay leaves.

  2. Bring the pickle to a boil.

  3. Add the pigeons to the boiling pickle.

  4. Simmer the pigeons: 15 minutes for small, 20 minutes for large.

  5. Remove the pigeons from the pickle.

  6. Wipe the pigeons.

  7. Let the pigeons cool.

  8. Remove the fat from the pickle.

Store

  1. Return the pigeons to the jar.

  2. Store the pigeons in a stone jar, tied down with a bladder to keep out 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. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 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 meat that is cooked and preserved in the pickle.
White wine vinegar
Acidity that preserves the birds and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
White wine
Adds body and mellow flavour to the pickle alongside the vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the birds and helps draw out moisture and preserve the meat.

The step that matters

Simmer the pigeons. Simmering only until the birds are cooked through, with timing set by size, keeps the meat tender and prevents it from turning dry or tough. Overcooking toughens muscle proteins, while undercooking leaves the meat unsafe.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (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 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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