Name: Pigeons En Casserole a LA Cauliflower
Ingredients: young pigeons; lardoons or strips of salt pork or bacon; 3 cups beef or veal broth; 1/4 cup white wine (optional); 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1/8 teaspoon pepper; 1 dozen olives, stoned and parboiled; 1 teaspoon flour; 2 tablespoons water

Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Pigeons En Casserole a LA Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Clean and wash the pigeons carefully, then insert lardoons or wrap each pigeon with a slice of bacon.
Heat a pot and cook the pigeons for 15 minutes on the back of the range.

Simmer

Add the broth, white wine (if using), salt, and pepper.
Cover and simmer slowly for about 45 minutes.
If needed, add more water.
Add the parboiled olives and flour mixed with water.
Simmer until tender.

Serve

Serve the olives as a garnish if preferred.

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.

Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,690 recipes

Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + olivetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,716 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,263 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Beef + olivetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,220 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Young pigeons: Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow simmering.
Lardoons or bacon: Add fat and savoury flavour that bastes the birds as they cook.
Beef or veal broth: Supplies the cooking liquid that flavours the dish and keeps the meat moist.
Flour: Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce when mixed with water.
White wine: Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly with the lid on. Gentle, covered simmering breaks down the connective tissue in the pigeon slowly, making it tender without drying the meat. Boiling hard toughens muscle fibres and reduces the liquid too quickly.

“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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Pigeons En Casserole a LA Cauliflower