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Roast Pigeons

Roast Pigeons are pigeons stuffed with butter, breadcrumbs, spices, and bacon, then roasted and basted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Roast Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Knead together the butter, bread-crumbs, cayenne, salt, pepper, parsley, nutmeg, and shallot.

  2. Stuff half the mixture into each pigeon.

  3. Lay a thick slice of bacon over the breast of each pigeon.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the pigeons before a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 minutes, basting constantly with butter.

  2. Ten minutes before they are done, remove the bacon and continue to baste until golden brown.

  3. Serve with gravy or on toast.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Nutmeg + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the stuffing and, when basted over the birds, browns the skin and keeps the meat moist.
Bread-crumbs
Absorb the butter and shallot juices, giving the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Bacon
Fat that bastes the breast as it cooks, keeping the lean meat moist and adding savoury flavour.
Pigeons
The main protein; the dark meat becomes tender and rich when roasted.

The step that matters

Removing the bacon and basting until golden. Removing the bacon ten minutes before the end lets the breast brown directly, while constant basting with butter keeps the surface from drying out before the birds are done.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, pepper, parsley, shallot):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, pepper, parsley, shallot. 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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