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Pigeons Stewed with Green Peas

A stew of pigeons cooked with green peas, bacon, butter, flour, stock, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pigeons Stewed with Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the pigeons and cut them into four pieces.

  2. Fry the bacon in a pan and place it in a stew pan.

  3. Fry the pigeons in the bacon fat and add them to the stew pan with the bacon.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the flour smoothly with the stock, then add pepper, salt, and herbs.

  2. Pour the mixture into the frying pan and stir.

  3. Pour everything into the stew pan and simmer until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve the peas in the center.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  3. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

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

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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 through slow simmering.
Bacon
Adds savory fat and smoky flavor to the pan drippings used for frying the pigeons.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce that coats the meat and peas.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the dish.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a bright, fresh vegetable element to the stew.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour smoothly with the stock. Flour clumps if added dry or to hot liquid without first being blended into cold stock. Whisking it smooth beforehand lets starch granules disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens without lumps.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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