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To Stew Pigeons

A stew of pigeons cooked with butter, herbs, wine, gravy, and finished with pickled mushrooms and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Stew Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Season the pigeons with pepper, salt, cloves, mace, and sweet herbs.

  2. Wrap the seasoning in butter and place it inside the pigeons.

  3. Tie the neck and vent of the pigeons, then half roast them.

Stew and finish

  1. Place the pigeons in a stewpan with gravy, white wine, peppercorns, mace, lemon, sweet herbs, and onion.

  2. Stew gently until cooked through.

  3. Remove the pigeons and strain the liquid through a sieve.

  4. Skim the fat and thicken the liquid in the pan.

  5. Add the pigeons back with pickled mushrooms and oysters.

  6. Stew for an additional 5 minutes, then serve with the sauce.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

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 is gently cooked until tender in the stewing liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, basting the birds from inside as they cook.
Gravy
Forms the body of the stew liquid, carrying savoury flavour and body.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and sauce.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Skim the fat and thicken the liquid in the pan. Pigeon and gravy release fat during stewing, and leaving it in makes the sauce greasy. Skimming first and then thickening gives a clean, glossy sauce with a good body.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, butter, white wine, lemon, 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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