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Figeons with Peas

A stew of pigeons simmered with peas, bacon, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Figeons with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the pigeons

  1. Place the pigeons in a saucepan with a little butter to coat them.

  2. Remove the pigeons and add small slices of bacon to the pan.

  3. Cook until browned.

  4. Add flour to the butter in the pan.

  5. Return the pigeons and bacon to the pan.

Make the sauce

  1. Gradually moisten with gravy and bring to a sauce consistency.

  2. Boil.

  3. Season with parsley, young onions, bay leaf, and garlic.

  4. Let simmer.

  5. Add the peas.

  6. Shake often.

  7. Remove the bay leaf.

Serve

  1. Serve the pigeons with gravy poured 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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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 in the butter and gravy sauce.
Butter
Coats the pigeons and carries browning in the pan, adding richness.
Bacon
Browns in the pan and adds smoky, savoury fat to the sauce.
Flour
Mixed into the butter to thicken the gravy into a sauce.
Gravy
Moistens the pan and forms the sauce that thickens as it simmers.
Peas
Add sweetness and body to the sauce as they simmer.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and gravy. Flour cooked briefly in the butter forms a roux that thickens the gravy smoothly; adding liquid too fast or without stirring can leave lumps. Gradual addition keeps the sauce even.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, parsley, onion, clove, garlic):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, parsley, onion, clove, garlic. 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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