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Fricassee of Pigeons

A fricassee of pigeons simmered in a sauce of beef broth, wine, lemon, spices, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fricassee of Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Stew the pigeons in a little water until more than half done.

  2. Melt the butter in a stew pan and let it brown.

  3. Stir in the flour.

  4. Pour in the beef soup, lemon juice, and white wine.

  5. Add the mace or nutmeg, onion, mushroom ketchup, and anchovy sauce.

  6. Put the pigeons in the pan and let them stew until tender.

Add the egg balls

  1. When the sauce is smooth and thick, mash the hard boiled egg yolks with salt and the raw egg yolk.

  2. Form the mixture into small balls, about the size of a nutmeg.

  3. Add the balls to the sauce and toss gently.

Serve

  1. Fry some bacon sippets for garnish.

  2. Dish the pigeons and pour the sauce over them.

  3. Garnish with bacon sippets.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 slow stewing in the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the browned butter and liquids into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Beef soup
Forms the savoury liquid base that the sauce is built on.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Mashed into the balls, they add richness and body to the sauce.
Raw egg yolk
Binds the mashed egg yolk mixture so the balls hold their shape.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth to the sauce alongside the lemon juice.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk balls. Adding the egg mixture to a sauce that is still hot or boiling can scramble the raw yolk and curdle the sauce. Make sure the sauce is smooth and thick, then add the balls gently and toss rather than stir vigorously.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, butter, lemon, white wine, onion, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, butter, lemon, white wine, onion, mushroom. 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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