Skip to main content
Main

To Broil Pigeons

Pigeons seasoned with salt and pepper, broiled and served with mushrooms in butter, parsley, and peas or asparagus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Broil Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the pigeons and split the backs.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the pigeons until nicely cooked.

  2. Pour stewed or pickled mushrooms in melted butter over the pigeons.

  3. Serve hot with parsley and butter.

  4. Prepare peas or asparagus to serve alongside.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + peastop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together890 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Form the main body of the dish, cooking to tender meat under the broiler.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, carrying flavour over the broiled birds.
Stewed or pickled mushrooms
Add a tangy, savoury topping that contrasts with the rich meat.

The step that matters

Broil the pigeons until nicely cooked. Broiling is fast and intense, so the birds can dry out or scorch on the outside before the centre is cooked. Splitting the backs helps them cook evenly, and watching the colour and firmness of the meat prevents overcooking.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mushroom, butter, 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.

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes