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Roasted pigeons seasoned with butter, cayenne pepper, parsley, black pepper, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dress the pigeons while they are very fresh by removing the heads, necks, and toes at the first joint.

  2. Draw them carefully and rinse with plenty of water.

  3. Wipe them dry.

Stuff and roast

  1. Stuff each bird with a small bit of butter sprinkled with cayenne or a mixture of chopped parsley, butter, black pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Roast the pigeons for about 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with brown gravy, bread sauce, or parsley and butter.

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

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

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

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 cooks quickly and stays tender when roasted briefly.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture inside the birds and helps them brown and taste rich.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat that flavours the butter stuffing.
Fresh parsley, chopped
Adds a fresh, green aroma to the butter stuffing.
Black pepper
Adds a sharp, mild heat and aroma to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Roast the pigeons for about 20 minutes. Pigeon meat is lean and dense, and overcooking dries it out quickly. Pulling the birds at the right point keeps the meat moist and tender while the skin still browns.

“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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