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Baking

Baked Pigeons

Pigeons baked with butter, onion, bacon, and stock, served with stewed livers and hearts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Pigeons

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clean the pigeons and place 1 tablespoon of butter, 1 slice of onion, and a sprinkle of salt and pepper inside each bird.

  2. Truss the pigeons and place them breast down in a baking pan.

  3. Lay a slice of bacon on each pigeon and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Bake

  1. Pour stock or boiling water into the pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 45 minutes, basting every 10 minutes.

  2. Turn the pigeons over after 30 minutes to brown the breast.

  3. While the pigeons are cooking, stew the livers and hearts until tender, then chop them finely and save the cooking water.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Form the main body of the dish, cooking through in the oven while staying moist under the bacon.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture inside each bird as it cooks.
Bacon
Lies over the breast, basting the meat with its fat and helping it brown.
Stock
Creates steam and moisture in the pan, keeping the birds from drying out.
Onion
Adds a mild aromatic flavour to the birds as they roast.

The step that matters

Turning the pigeons to brown the breast. Breast-down roasting keeps the meat moist at first, so turning it after 30 minutes lets the breast brown. Turning too early or too late can leave it pale or dry.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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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