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Pigeons a LA Crapaudine — Broiled Pigeons

Broiled pigeons seasoned with oil or butter, salt, pepper, parsley, chives, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pigeons a LA Crapaudine — Broiled Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Singe the pigeons to remove feathers.

  2. Cut off the neck and split them open down the back.

  3. Flatten the pigeons without breaking bones.

Season and grill

  1. Smear with oil or butter, then sprinkle with salt, pepper, parsley, and chives.

  2. Cover with bread crumbs or grated biscuit.

  3. Grill over a slow charcoal fire until browned and 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + chivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Young pigeons
Provide the meat that is cooked through over the slow fire.
Oil or butter
Adds fat that carries seasoning and helps the skin brown.
Bread crumbs or grated biscuit
Forms a crust that browns on the surface while the meat cooks.

The step that matters

Grill over a slow charcoal fire. A slow fire lets heat reach the centre before the coating scorches. Too much heat can burn the crumb crust while the meat stays underdone, so watch colour and doneness closely.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, parsley, bread):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, parsley, bread. 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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