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Pigeons, a LA Maintenon

A pigeon dish cooked with butter, mushrooms, shallots, and a sauce of Allemande, mushroom essence, nutmeg, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pigeons, a LA Maintenon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Split the pigeons lengthwise and flatten them.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Fry in a sauté pan with butter, chopped mushrooms, parsley, and shallots.

  4. Add Allemande sauce, essence of mushrooms, nutmeg, and lemon juice; simmer for 5 minutes.

  5. Allow to cool partially.

Wrap and cook

  1. Trim corners of note paper and oil it.

  2. Place pigeons in the paper, dividing the sauce equally.

  3. Twist edges of the paper to secure the sauce and broil over moderate heat.

Serve

  1. Serve on a napkin with brown Italian sauce in a separate dish.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 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
Provide the main meat, which is split and flattened so it cooks evenly.
Butter
Carries fat for frying, adding richness and helping the pigeon brown.
Chopped mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour to the sauce as they cook in the pan.
Shallots
Contribute a mild sweetness and aroma when softened in butter.
Allemande sauce
Gives the filling a creamy, thickened body that holds the pigeon moist.

The step that matters

Twist the paper to seal the sauce before broiling. If the paper is not sealed tightly, the sauce and juices can leak out during broiling, leaving the pigeon dry and the filling thin. Cooling the sauce partially first keeps it thick enough to stay inside the packet.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, mushroom, parsley, shallot, sauce, lemon. 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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