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To Broil Pigeons

Pigeons are cleaned, seasoned, broiled, and served with parsley and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Broil Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the pigeons and split the backs.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the pigeons until cooked through.

  2. Serve with parsley and melted butter poured around 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the main protein, which firms and browns as it cooks through under the broiler.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and carries flavor when melted around the birds.

The step that matters

Broiling until cooked through. Pigeon meat is dense and can dry out quickly under high direct heat. Watching closely and checking that the meat is fully cooked, without overcooking it, keeps the birds juicy and safe to eat.

“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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