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Pigeons Au Court-bouillon

Pigeons au Court-Bouillon is a braised pigeon dish cooked with carrot, onion, parsley, garlic, peppercorns, salt, bay leaf, bacon, and Sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Pigeons Au Court-bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Truss and prepare the pigeons with a good stuffing in the crop.

  2. In a large stewpan, layer the sliced carrot, chopped onion, parsley, minced garlic, peppercorns, salt, and bay leaf. Add thin slices of bacon on top, then place the pigeons over the bacon.

Stew and cool

  1. Cover the pigeons with more bacon and pour in the braise and Sherry.

  2. Stew gently between two fires until the pigeons are very tender.

  3. Remove the pigeons and let them sit in the braise until half cold.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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 very tender through long, gentle stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that bastes the birds and keeps them moist as they cook.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the braise, flavouring the meat and liquid.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and aromatic flavour to the braise as it simmers.

The step that matters

Stew gently between two fires until the pigeons are very tender. Gentle, low heat breaks down connective tissue slowly, making the meat tender. Rapid boiling would toughen the proteins and dry the birds out.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, parsley, garlic, sherry):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, parsley, garlic, sherry. 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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