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A roast of beef, mutton, or chicken seasoned with marjoram, pepper, salt, and bread crumbs, finished with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Dinner

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Prepare a meat pan and place the chosen meat inside.

  3. If using chickens, stuff them with soaked bread crumbs seasoned with sweet marjoram, pepper, and salt.

Roast

  1. Baste the chickens with softened butter and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  2. Cook the meat until done, ensuring veal is cooked long enough.

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. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

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

  5. Bread + marjoramtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,008 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Soaked bread crumbs
Form a moist stuffing and a crisp, browned crust on the surface.
Softened butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the surface brown while roasting.
Sweet marjoram
Adds a warm, herbal aroma to the bread crumb stuffing.

The step that matters

Cook the meat until done. Meat is cooked by internal temperature rather than time alone, and undercooking leaves food unsafe while overcooking dries it out. Check the thickest part with a thermometer.

Swap the marjoram

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Marjoramthe original

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