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Pigeon Soup

A soup made with pigeons simmered in beef stock, seasoned with salt, nutmeg, lemon juice or vinegar, mushroom ketchup, and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pigeon Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Make a strong beef stock, seasoned well.

  2. Clean the pigeons, removing necks, pinions, livers, and gizzards, and add them to the stock.

Cook the soup

  1. Quarter the pigeons and brown them nicely.

  2. Strain the stock and add the pigeons.

  3. Boil until nearly ready, about 30 minutes.

  4. Thicken the soup with flour mixed in a cup of the soup.

  5. Season with nutmeg, lemon juice or vinegar, and mushroom ketchup.

  6. Boil for a few minutes, then serve with the pigeons in the tureen.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Nutmeg + mushroomtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,988 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Ketchup + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 and flavourful as it simmers in the stock.
Strong beef stock
Forms the liquid base and carries most of the soup's savoury flavour.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells when heated in liquid.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury, umami depth to the seasoned broth.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens and balances the rich stock.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with flour mixed in a cup of the soup. Flour must be blended into liquid first so its starch disperses evenly; added dry it clumps. Boiling for a few minutes afterward lets the starch swell fully and thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, nutmeg, mushroom, ketchup, flour):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Avocadofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, nutmeg, mushroom, ketchup, flour. 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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