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Pigeons, Potted

A stew of roasted pigeons simmered with wine, stock, and onions, finished with a butter‑flour roux and fried breadcrumb‑coated forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pigeons, Potted

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Brown the birds and onion

  1. Fry the trussed pigeons in hot butter until well browned.

  2. Place the browned pigeons in a stew jar.

  3. Brown the onion in the remaining butter.

  4. Add the browned onion to the stew jar.

Stew

  1. Pour in the stock and season with salt and pepper, then cover closely.

  2. Cook the jar in a saucepan of boiling water or in the oven at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours.

  3. Knead the flour and 1 ounce of butter together.

  4. Divide the mixture into small pieces.

  5. Add the pieces to the jar 1 hour before serving.

  6. Shape the forcemeat into small balls.

  7. Coat the balls with beaten egg and breadcrumbs.

  8. Fry the coated balls in hot butter until golden.

  9. Add the wine to the stew 15 minutes before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve the stew with the sauce poured over.

  2. Garnish with the fried forcemeat balls.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 long, covered stewing.
Flour and butter forcemeat
Thickens the sauce as the pieces break down during cooking and adds richness.
Port or claret
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth when browned before stewing.
Egg and breadcrumbs
Form a golden crust on the forcemeat balls when fried, adding texture.

The step that matters

Cover the jar closely and cook slowly. Gentle, sealed cooking keeps the moisture in and lets the tough pigeon meat become tender without drying out. Boiling hard or leaving the jar uncovered would toughen the meat and reduce the sauce too quickly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, flour, egg. 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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