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To Pot Pigeons

A method of baking pigeons in butter, then potting them with the butter for storage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pot Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Clean the pigeons thoroughly and season them with salt and pepper.

  2. Optionally, stuff with forcemeat and add mace, allspice, and a little cayenne for flavor before baking.

  3. For a tighter fit, bone the pigeons and shape them oval before potting.

Bake

  1. Place them closely in a small deep pan to minimize butter usage.

  2. Cover the pigeons with butter and then with thick paper tied down.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

Pot and store

  1. Once cooled, place the pigeons in pots that hold 2 or 3 each and pour the baked butter over them.

  2. Ensure the butter is thick over the pigeons if they are to be stored.

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 + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Pepper + vealtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Fresh pigeons
Form the dish's main body; their meat is cooked through and then preserved under butter.
Butter
Cooks the pigeons gently and, once set over them, seals the pot against air for storage.
Forcemeat
Adds a moist, richer filling inside the birds when used.

The step that matters

Make the butter thick over the pigeons before storing. Butter that is cooled and set thickly over the birds forms a seal that keeps air out. A thin layer lets air reach the meat, so it can spoil sooner.

Swap the mace

The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, veal, allspice):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, veal, allspice. 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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