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To Pickle Pigeons

A pickled pigeon dish preserved in a vinegar and wine brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Bone the pigeons and turn them inside out.

  2. Lard them.

  3. Season with a little allspice and coarse sea salt.

  4. Turn them again.

  5. Tie the neck and rump with thread.

  6. Put them into boiling water. Let them boil for 1-2 minutes to plump.

  7. Remove them. Dry them well.

Make the pickle and cook

  1. Prepare the pickle with equal parts white wine and white wine vinegar, adding white pepper, allspice, sliced ginger, nutmeg, and bay leaves.

  2. Bring the pickle to a boil. Add the pigeons.

  3. Cook the pigeons for 15 minutes if small, 20 minutes if large.

  4. Remove the pigeons. Wipe them. Let them cool.

Store

  1. Once the pickle is cold, remove the fat.

  2. Return the pigeons to the jar.

  3. Store in a stone jar. Tie it down with a bladder to keep out air.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
The main meat, which is boned, seasoned, and cooked in the pickle.
White wine vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that makes the pickle preserve and flavor the meat.
White wine
Adds liquid and mild flavor to the pickle in equal parts with the vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the birds and helps draw out moisture and flavor before pickling.

The step that matters

Cooking the pigeons in the boiling pickle. Cooking time depends on bird size. Overcooking toughens the meat and dries it out, while undercooking leaves it unsafe to store in an acidic pickle. Check size before setting the timer.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, white wine, vinegar, ginger, nutmeg, egg, pepper):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, white wine, vinegar, ginger, nutmeg, egg, pepper. 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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