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Another Pigeon Soup

A soup made from pigeons, water, spices, herbs, spinach, butter, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 163 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Another Pigeon Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut down two of the oldest pigeons.

  2. Put the two pigeons, along with the necks, pinions, livers, and gizzards of the other pigeons, into four quarts of water.

  3. Boil until the substance is extracted.

  4. Strain the stock.

Prepare the pigeons and herbs

  1. Season the pigeons with mixed spices and salt, and truss them for stewing.

  2. Pick and wash a handful of parsley, a handful of chives or young onions, and a handful of spinach.

  3. Chop the parsley, chives or young onions, and spinach.

Fry the bread and finish the soup

  1. In a frying pan, melt one quarter pound of butter until it boils.

  2. Mix in a handful of bread crumbs. Stir with a knife until the crumbs are a fine brown.

  3. Boil the whole pigeons in the stock with the herbs and fried bread until tender.

  4. If the soup is not seasoned enough, add more mixed spices and salt.

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. Chive + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the meat and rich flavour that the stock and soup are built around.
Butter
Carries flavour and browns the bread crumbs, adding richness to the soup.
Bread crumbs
Toast in butter and thicken the soup slightly, giving it body.
Spinach
Adds green leafy body and a mild, earthy flavour to the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the bread crumbs in butter. Crumbs fried in butter can scorch quickly once they darken. Stirring constantly and removing them at a fine brown keeps the flavour toasted rather than bitter.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, chive, butter, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, chive, butter, bread. 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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