Name: Salmis of Pigeons
Ingredients: 2 pigeons; 2 oz butter; small mushrooms; good brown sauce (made from stock flavored with vegetables, thickened and strained)

Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Salmis of Pigeons

Ingredients

2 pigeons
2 oz butter
small mushrooms
good brown sauce (made from stock flavored with vegetables, thickened and strained)

Directions

Prepare and brown

Cut each pigeon in half.
Fry the pigeon halves in butter until nicely browned.

Simmer in sauce

Place the browned pigeons in a saucepan.
Cover with brown sauce and add mushrooms.
Simmer gently for 30 minutes.

Serve

Dish up and garnish with fried pieces of bread.

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.

Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mushroom + saucetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,480 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 during gentle simmering.
Butter: Carries heat for browning the pigeon and adds richness to the surface.
Brown sauce: Adds moisture and body, coating the pigeon as it simmers.
Mushrooms: Add earthy savoury flavour and soft texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the pigeon halves until nicely browned. Browning triggers the Maillard reaction, which builds deep savoury flavour in the meat and fat. Pale pieces give a flat taste in the final sauce, while overly hot butter can burn before the meat cooks through.

“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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Salmis of Pigeons