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Pigeons Grillees with Mushrooms

Pigeons grilled and served with mushroom sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Pigeons Grillees with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the pigeons for marinating as directed in the recipe.

  2. Dip the pigeons in clarified butter.

Grill and serve

  1. Broil the pigeons over a gentle charcoal fire, bone side down, until nearly done.

  2. Turn the pigeons to brown the other side.

  3. Place the pigeons on a serving dish and pour mushroom sauce over them.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Mushroom + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,480 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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, which cooks quickly over charcoal and stays tender when not overcooked.
Clarified butter
Coats the birds with fat, adding richness and helping the surface brown evenly.
Mushroom sauce
Adds moisture and savoury, earthy flavour to the grilled meat.

The step that matters

Turning the pigeons to brown the other side. Pigeon meat is lean and dense, so overcooking dries it out. Turning once the first side is set and browned, and removing the birds while still slightly underdone, keeps the meat juicy while the outside browns through the Maillard reaction.

“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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