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To Broil Pigeons

A roasted pigeon seasoned with pepper, salt, parsley, chives, and bread crumbs, served with gravy or sharp sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

To Broil Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Split the pigeons open at the back and flatten them.

  2. Dip the pigeons in oil or clarified butter.

  3. Mix pepper, salt, parsley, and chives; cover the pigeons with this seasoning.

  4. Dip the pigeons again in oil and cover with bread crumbs.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil for 10 to 15 minutes over a clear fire until nicely browned.

  2. Serve with gravy or a sharp sauce.

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 + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 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
Main protein; splitting and flattening lets them cook evenly under direct heat.
Oil or clarified butter
Carries the seasoning and bread crumbs and helps the surface brown under the broiler.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust that protects the meat from drying out.
Parsley and chives
Add fresh herbal aroma to the seasoning coating.

The step that matters

Broil until nicely browned. Direct heat from a clear fire browns the crumb coating quickly, so the birds can dry out or scorch if left too long. Check them as the 10 to 15 minute window approaches.

Swap the chive

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

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

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