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Pigeons @ LA Craupaudine, and Piquant Sauce

A pigeon dish cooked with butter, shallot, parsley, thyme, mushrooms, and bread crumbs, served with piquant sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,057 recipes mention both. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Pigeons @ LA Craupaudine, and Piquant Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Split the pigeons at the belly.

  2. Turn the breast over.

  3. Melt the butter in a stewpan with shallot, parsley, thyme, mushrooms, salt, and pepper.

  4. Place the pigeons on a dish.

  5. Pour the melted butter mixture over the pigeons.

  6. When the butter cools, roll the pigeons in bread crumbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the pigeons in a buttered sauté pan.

  2. Cook until the underside is brown.

  3. Remove the pigeons from the pan.

  4. Drain excess butter on a cloth.

  5. Arrange the pigeons on a serving dish with sauce in the middle.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,585 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the main protein, which is split and cooked so the meat browns evenly.
Butter
Carries flavor and browns the pigeon skin, while also keeping the meat moist during cooking.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the outside of the pigeons.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture to the melted butter mixture poured over the birds.

The step that matters

Cook until the underside is brown. Browning depends on surface heat and dry, butter-coated skin, so the pigeons need enough heat to brown without drying out. Patting off excess butter before cooking helps the crumb coating crisp rather than steam.

“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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