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Pigeon Cutlets with Olives

Pigeon cutlets seasoned with pepper and salt, coated in egg yolk and breadcrumbs, broiled, served with a sauce of olives, onion, carrot, ham, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pigeon Cutlets with Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Singe, draw, and wash the pigeons. Dry them, then cut off the necks, wings, and feet. Bone them, leaving the legs on.

  2. Lay the cutlets in a pan with melted butter and cook for 3 minutes on each side. Remove to a plate and let cool.

  3. Trim the cutlets neatly and season with pepper and salt 15 minutes before serving.

Coat the cutlets

  1. Mix the egg yolk with cold melted butter. Dip the cutlets into this mixture and cover with bread crumbs.

  2. Broil the cutlets until light brown on both sides.

Prepare the olives

  1. Remove pits from the olives and soak in cold water for ½ hour. Cook in boiling water for 5 minutes, then drain and cool.

  2. Stuff the cooled olives with chicken or veal forcemeat.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a saucepan, melt butter and add onion, carrot, ham, bay leaf, and peppercorns. Cook for 5 minutes.

  2. Add flour, stir, and cook for 3 minutes. Then add white broth and salt, cooking slowly for 10 minutes.

  3. Strain the sauce into a clean saucepan, add the olives, and cook slowly for 8 minutes.

  4. Glaze the pigeon cutlets and serve on a hot dish with olives on each side. Serve the sauce in a sauce bowl.

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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the lean meat that is shaped into cutlets and browned.
Egg yolk
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the cutlets.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating during broiling.
Salted olives
Add salty, tangy flavour and are stuffed and served alongside the cutlets.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
White broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savoury body.

The step that matters

Adding the broth to the flour. Flour cooked in butter forms a roux; adding liquid gradually while stirring prevents lumps and gives a smooth, evenly thickened sauce.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, egg, bread, olive, onion, ham):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, egg, bread, olive, onion, ham. 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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