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To Pickle Pigeons

A preserved pigeon dish pickled in wine and vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Bone the pigeons and turn them inside out.

  2. Lard the pigeons.

  3. Season with allspice and coarse sea salt.

  4. Turn the pigeons back and tie the neck and rump with thread.

  5. Boil the pigeons in water for 1-2 minutes to plump.

  6. Remove the pigeons and dry them well.

Make the pickle and cook

  1. Prepare the pickle by mixing equal parts white wine and white wine vinegar, adding white pepper, allspice, sliced ginger, nutmeg, and bay leaves.

  2. Bring the pickle to a boil and add the pigeons.

  3. Cook small pigeons for 15 minutes and large ones for 20 minutes.

  4. Remove the pigeons, wipe them, and let them cool.

  5. Once the pickle is cold, remove the fat and return the pigeons to the jar.

Store

  1. Store in a stone jar, sealed with a bladder to keep out air.

  2. For variation, stuff some pigeons with a mixture of hard yolks of eggs, marrow, sweet herbs, pepper, salt, and mace.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Main protein, which the pickle softens and flavours as it is preserved.
White wine vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the birds and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
White wine
Adds body and mild acidity to the pickle liquid.
Marrow
Adds richness and fat to the stuffing used in the variation.
Hard yolks of eggs
Bind and thicken the stuffing with a rich, crumbly texture.

The step that matters

Cook small and large pigeons for different times. Pigeons differ in size, and cooking them past their size-appropriate time toughens the meat, while undercooking leaves it unsafe. Matching time to size keeps the texture even.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, white wine, vinegar, ginger, nutmeg, egg, mace):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, white wine, vinegar, ginger, nutmeg, egg, mace. 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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