Why it works: Butter and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Boiled Pigeons
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Truss the pigeons like boiled fowls.
Boil
Drop them into plenty of boiling water.
Add ½ cup of coarse sea salt.
Boil for 15 minutes.
Finish and serve
Lift them out and pour melted butter and chopped parsley over them.
Serve immediately.
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.
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Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together28,563 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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 cooks through in the boiling water.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel when poured over the hot birds.
“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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