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Compote De Pigeons

A stew of pigeons cooked with bacon, onions, flour, and veal stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Compote De Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the bacon and pigeons

  1. Cut the bacon into small dice and fry gently in a large stewpan with a little butter until lightly browned.

  2. Remove the bacon and add the trussed pigeons to the pan.

  3. Cook the pigeons until firm and lightly colored, then remove them from the pan.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir the flour into the fat in the pan until slightly browned.

  2. Gradually add the boiling veal stock or broth, stirring continuously.

Stew and finish

  1. Return the pigeons and bacon to the pan, along with a few small button onions.

  2. Simmer until the pigeons are cooked through.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  4. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Flour and butter 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

Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender as it simmers slowly in the liquid.
Streaky bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor to the butter and pan base as it browns.
Flour
Browned in the fat, it thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly body sauce.
Veal stock or broth
Forms the cooking liquid that becomes the sauce and moistens the birds.
Button onions
Add sweetness and a mild savory note as they soften in the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the stock to the flour. Adding boiling stock gradually while stirring continuously keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, veal, butter. 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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