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Pigeons Stewed

A stew of pigeons cooked with cabbage, milk, water, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pigeons Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut the cabbage for pickling.

  2. Rinse the cabbage in cold water and drain it well.

  3. Place the cabbage in a saucepan with equal parts milk and water and boil.

  4. Strain off the milk.

  5. Layer a portion of the cabbage in a stewpan.

Stew the pigeons

  1. Soak the pigeons in cold milk and water for 30 minutes.

  2. Season the pigeons with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

  3. Place the seasoned pigeons in the stewpan with the cabbage and cover with remaining cabbage.

  4. Add white broth until the pigeons are covered.

  5. Stew slowly until the pigeons are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the stew with cream, flour, and butter and let it boil.

  2. Serve with a puree of cabbage.

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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 meat that becomes tender during slow stewing.
White cabbage
Forms the bed of the stew and, once pureed, the accompanying side.
Flour
Thickens the stew liquid as it boils with the butter and cream.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the thickened stew sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the thickened sauce.

The step that matters

Stew slowly until the pigeons are tender. Gentle heat lets the tough connective tissue in pigeon meat break down slowly. Rapid boiling toughens the muscle fibres and can leave the meat dry and stringy.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper, cream, flour, 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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