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Roast Pig-eons

A roasted pigeon dish seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and flour, served with a gravy made from the pan drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Pig-eons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Clean the pigeons and stuff them like chickens, leaving the feet on.

  2. Dip the pigeons in scalding water to remove the skin.

  3. Tie the feet together below the breast bone or cut them off.

  4. If keeping the head, dip it in scalding water. Clean the head.

  5. Twist the wings back.

  6. Place the liver between the right wing and the body, tucking the head under the other wing.

  7. Rub the outside of each bird with a mixture of pepper and salt.

  8. Skewer the pigeons.

Roast

  1. Place some water in the dripping pan.

  2. Add a piece of butter to each bird.

  3. Roast them before a hot fire, basting frequently for about 30 minutes.

  4. Dredge with wheat flour.

  5. Baste with the butter in the pan, turning them to brown evenly.

  6. Remove the pigeons.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Set the pan over the fire.

  2. Make a thin batter with 1 teaspoon of wheat flour and cold water.

  3. Stir the batter into the boiling gravy.

  4. Continue stirring until brown.

  5. Strain through a gravy sieve into a tureen.

  6. Serve with the pigeons.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Pepper + wheattop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together984 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
The main meat, cooked whole so the bird stays moist while roasting.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and basting with it helps the skin brown evenly.
Wheat flour
Dredged on the birds and used in the batter to thicken and colour the gravy.
Black pepper
Seasons the outside of the birds for flavour.

The step that matters

Stir the batter into the boiling gravy. Flour lumps form if a thin batter is added to liquid unevenly. Stirring constantly while adding it disperses the starch so the gravy thickens smoothly.

“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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