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Pigeon Soup

A soup made with pigeons, beef stock, sea salt, lemon juice or vinegar, mushroom catsup, nutmeg, and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pigeon Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a strong beef stock, seasoned well.

  2. Clean the pigeons, removing necks, pinions, livers, and gizzards.

  3. Quarter the pigeons.

Cook

  1. Brown the pigeons nicely.

  2. Strain the stock.

  3. Add the pigeons to the stock.

  4. Boil until nearly ready, about 30 minutes.

  5. Thicken with flour mixed in a cup of soup.

  6. Season with nutmeg, lemon juice or vinegar, and mushroom catsup.

  7. Boil for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with the pigeons in the tureen.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mushroom + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,988 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 becomes tender as it simmers in the stock.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a soup with body when cooked through.
Beef stock
Forms the savory liquid base that carries all the other flavors.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich stock and balances its flavor.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour mixed in a cup of soup. Flour added directly to hot liquid forms lumps. Mixing it first into a little cold or cooled soup and then stirring it back in gives a smooth, evenly thickened result.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mushroom, nutmeg, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mushroom, nutmeg, flour. 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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