Name: Broiled Pigeons
Ingredients: pigeons; coarse sea salt; black pepper; stewed mushrooms or pickled mushrooms; butter

Why it works: Mushroom and butter 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 ↓

Broiled Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Clean and wash the pigeons thoroughly.
Split the pigeons down the back.
Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Cook and serve

Broil the pigeons until cooked nicely.
Pour stewed or pickled mushrooms in melted butter over the pigeons.
Serve hot.

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.

Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons: The main protein, which cooks through and browns under the broiler's direct heat.
Butter: Melted over the cooked birds, it adds richness and a glossy coating of fat.
Stewed mushrooms or pickled mushrooms: Add savory, earthy flavor and a moist, tangy or tender contrast to the rich pigeon.

“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.