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Pigeons Au Basilic

Pigeons au Basilic is a dish of pigeons stewed with basil, coated in egg yolk and bread, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Basil and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,351 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pigeons Au Basilic

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Draw the pigeons.

  2. Truss the pigeons.

  3. Stew them with basil until cooked.

  4. Remove them from the pot and let cool.

Coat and fry

  1. Beat the yolks of two eggs in a bowl.

  2. Dip the pigeons in the egg yolks.

  3. Coat them with grated bread.

  4. Fry the pigeons until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with fried parsley.

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. Basil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  4. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

  5. Basil + breadtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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 through stewing before frying.
Basil
Adds a fragrant herbal aroma to the pigeons as they stew.
Eggs
Egg yolks bind the bread coating to the pigeons and help it set and brown.
Bread
Grated bread forms a crumb coating that turns crisp and golden when fried.
Oil for frying
Conducts heat to crisp the coating and drive browning on the outside.

The step that matters

Fry the pigeons until golden brown. The pigeons are already cooked, so frying only sets the egg and bread coating and browns it. Moderate heat lets the crumbs crisp and turn golden evenly. Too hot an oil scorches the coating before it dries and crisps, leaving it dark and bitter-tasting.

Swap the basil

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, parsley. 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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