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Pigeons Farce a L'Estragon, or with Tarragon Sauce

Young pigeons stuffed with veal forcemeat, stewed in braising liquid and served with tarragon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,784 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Pigeons Farce a L'Estragon, or with Tarragon Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the pigeons like a fowl for stewing, with the legs turned in.

  2. Stuff the crop of each pigeon with veal forcemeat and tie the skin closed.

  3. Wrap the breasts with bards of fat bacon.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew the pigeons gently in good braising liquid until tender.

  2. Carefully remove the pigeons, untruss them, and place on a serving dish.

  3. Pour hot tarragon sauce over the pigeons before serving.

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. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Beef + tarragontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together310 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Tarragon + saucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together566 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Veal + tarragontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Beef + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,650 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 through gentle, slow stewing.
Veal forcemeat
Fills the crop with a moist, savoury stuffing that keeps the birds juicy as they cook.
Fat bacon
Bards the breasts, adding fat that bastes the lean meat and keeps it from drying out.
Braising liquid
Gently cooks the birds in moisture, softening the meat and adding savoury flavour.
Tarragon sauce
Adds aromatic, slightly anise-like flavour and moisture to the finished birds.

The step that matters

Stew the pigeons gently until tender. Slow, low-heat simmering lets connective tissue break down gradually, while a rapid boil toughens the meat and can split the stuffed birds.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, beef, sauce):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Tarragonthe original
  3. Pepperfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, sauce. 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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