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Pigeons, Stewed

Stewed pigeons served on fried bread with sauce, peas, onions, and carrots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pigeons, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Cut each pigeon into pieces.

  2. Fry the pieces brown in the butter.

Stew

  1. Heat the Espagnole sauce.

  2. Add the pigeons and claret.

  3. Cover and stew gently for about 35 minutes until tender.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Strain the butter into a small saucepan.

  2. Add the onions.

  3. Cook until tender and well browned.

  4. Boil the carrots separately.

  5. Boil the peas separately.

  6. Drain them well.

Serve

  1. Arrange the pigeons on the fried bread.

  2. Strain the sauce over the pigeons.

  3. Group the onions, peas, and carrots around the dish before serving.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Peas + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

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 through gentle stewing.
Butter
Browns the pigeon pieces and adds richness and flavour.
Espagnole sauce
Forms the thick, savoury sauce that coats the pigeons and carries the flavour.
Claret
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the stewing liquid.
Button onions
Add sweetness and browning as they cook in the butter.

The step that matters

Frying the pigeon pieces brown in the butter. Browning creates the Maillard reaction, which adds deep savoury flavour and colour to the meat. Pale frying yields a blander stew, so the pieces should be well coloured before stewing.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

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