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Pigeon, Roast

Roasted pigeon served on hot buttered toast with lime pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pigeon, Roast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pluck and draw the pigeon, then cut off the head and feet.

  2. Wipe the pigeon well with a damp cloth and place a tiny piece of butter inside.

  3. Truss the pigeon like a quail.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the pigeon in a fireproof dish with dripping or butter, cover, and cook over moderate heat, turning and basting often.

  2. Just before done, sprinkle the pigeon with a little flour and remove the lid to brown.

  3. Serve on hot buttered toast with pieces of lime.

  4. If desired, serve with vegetables and make gravy from the giblets as for pheasant.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + limetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + limetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Pigeon
Is the main protein, cooked whole so the meat stays moist under gentle covered heat.
Dripping or butter
Conducts heat and adds fat, helping the bird brown and gain rich flavour while basting.
Flour
Sprinkled on near the end, it helps the surface brown and form a light crust.

The step that matters

Removing the lid to brown. Cooking covered keeps the bird moist, but the lid must come off just before it is done. Leaving it covered too long gives pale, steamed skin rather than browning, which needs dry heat.

Swap the lime

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Limethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour. 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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