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Stewed Pigeon

A pigeon stewed with stock, butter, pepper, salt, parsley, and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Stewed Pigeon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the butter with pepper, salt, and chopped parsley.

  2. Stuff the mixture inside the pigeon.

Stew and serve

  1. Place the pigeon in a small stewpan with the stock and bacon.

  2. Stew slowly for 30 minutes.

  3. Serve with or without the bacon.

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

Pigeon
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked slowly until tender in the stock.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, carrying the seasoning into the bird as it cooks.
Bacon
Adds savoury, smoky flavour to the stock as it stews with the pigeon.
Stock
Provides the cooking liquid that keeps the pigeon moist and carries flavour.

The step that matters

Stew slowly for 30 minutes. Gentle, low-heat simmering breaks down the connective tissue in the pigeon's muscle and keeps the meat tender. A rapid boil toughens the meat and dries out the liquid.

“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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