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Pigeons Stewed with Cabbage

A dish of pigeons stewed on a bed of white cabbage with broth, cream, butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pigeons Stewed with Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Slice the cabbage as if for pickling and soak it in water.

  2. Drain the cabbage and boil it in a mixture of milk and water.

  3. Drain the cabbage again and place some at the bottom of a stew pan.

Stew the pigeons

  1. Season the pigeons with salt and pepper, then place them on top of the cabbage.

  2. Cover the pigeons with the remaining cabbage and add the broth.

  3. Stew gently until the pigeons are tender.

Thicken and serve

  1. Stir in the cream, butter, and flour for thickening.

  2. Boil for a few minutes, then serve the pigeons in the center with cabbage 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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cabbage + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together978 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Hard white cabbage
Forms the bed and bulk of the dish, becoming tender and absorbing the cooking liquid.
Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, gentle stewing.
Broth
Supplies liquid for the stew, carrying flavor through the cabbage and meat.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the finished sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavor of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a body-giving sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour with the cream and butter before boiling. Flour thickens only when its starch is hydrated and heated; stirring it in cold or leaving it unblended can cause lumps, and boiling briefly activates the starch for a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cream, butter, flour):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cream, butter, flour. 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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