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Pigeons in Jelly

Pigeons cooked in a clear broth jelly with herbs, mace, and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and white pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Pigeons in Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Boil the knuckle of veal in water to make broth.

  2. In a pan, combine the broth, mace, sweet herbs, white pepper, lemon peel, and bacon.

Cook the pigeons

  1. Truss the pigeons with heads and feet on, clipping the nails close.

  2. Bake the trussed pigeons in the broth until cooked through.

  3. Remove pigeons and let them cool, seasoning as desired before baking.

Clear and set the jelly

  1. To clear the jelly, boil the egg whites and strain through a cloth.

  2. Remove fat from the broth and pour the clear jelly over the pigeons.

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. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

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

  5. Mace + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,315 recipes

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

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 is cooked whole in the seasoned broth.
Knuckle of veal
Releases gelatin into the broth, which sets it into a firm jelly when cooled.
Egg whites
Bind fine particles in the broth as they coagulate, so the jelly can be strained clear.
Bacon
Adds savoury, smoky flavour to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Clearing the jelly with egg whites. Egg whites must be boiled and strained carefully through a cloth. As they coagulate they trap cloudy particles, so skimming off fat and straining gently keeps the jelly clear rather than murky.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, white pepper, lemon, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, white pepper, lemon, egg. 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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