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Four Pigeons Larded

A dish of pigeons larded with bacon, simmered in stock with onions, herbs, and mace.

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

Four Pigeons Larded

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Draw in the legs of the pigeons and fill them with farce.

  2. Lard the pigeons with bacon.

Braise

  1. In a stewpan, layer the bottom with sheets of bacon.

  2. Add stock, onions, thyme, parsley, bay leaves, and mace to the stewpan.

  3. Place the pigeons in the stewpan.

  4. Cover the pigeons with bacon sheets.

  5. Simmer on the stove for 30 minutes.

  6. Place lighted charcoal on the cover.

Finish and strain

  1. Finish the pigeons as you would with other lardings.

  2. Strain the braise.

  3. Skim the fat from the braise.

  4. Add the liquid to the ragout.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + macetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,113 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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 is firm enough to hold its shape during a long braise.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour, and keeps the lean birds moist as it melts during cooking.
Stock
Forms the braising liquid that cooks the birds gently and becomes the base of the sauce.
Onions
Release sweetness and aromatic flavour into the braising liquid as they cook.
Farce
Fills the birds with a seasoned stuffing that adds moisture and flavour from within.

The step that matters

Skim the fat from the braise. Fat from the bacon and birds rises to the surface of the liquid and can make the sauce greasy and heavy if it is not removed before the liquid is used.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, thyme, parsley. 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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