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Pigeons, Stewed

Stewed pigeon pieces simmered in stock with onions, thickened, seasoned, and optionally flavored with sherry and mushroom.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,176 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Pigeons, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeon

  1. Cut each pigeon into four pieces and brown them in a frying pan.

Stew and thicken

  1. Stew the pieces gently in stock with browned button onions.

  2. Thicken the stock with brown thickening, removing the pigeon pieces first.

Finish and serve

  1. Warm the pigeon pieces in the gravy before serving.

  2. Season with pepper and salt, and add a mushroom and sherry if desired.

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. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + sherrytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeon
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing in liquid.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the stew and carries flavour into the meat and onions.
Brown thickening
Thickens the stock into a gravy that clings to the pigeon pieces.
Button onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften and brown in the stew.

The step that matters

Stew the pieces gently in stock. Gentle, low heat lets the connective tissue in the pigeon break down slowly, giving tender meat. A hard boil toughens the muscle fibres and can leave the meat dry and stringy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sherry, mushroom):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sherry, mushroom. 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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