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Roast Woodcock

Roast Woodcock is a poultry dish prepared by baking a split woodcock with fat salt pork, toasted bread, butter, and pan gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Roast Woodcock

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Split the woodcock down the back.

  2. Lard the breast with fat salt pork.

  3. Place each bird in a baking pan with a slice of toasted bread underneath.

  4. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Roast

  1. Roast for 35 minutes, basting every 5 minutes with melted butter and then with the gravy from the pan.

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

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

  2. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

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

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Woodcock
Provides the main meat, which is cooked whole after being split down the back.
Fat salt pork
Lards the breast, adding fat that keeps the lean meat moist during roasting.
Melted butter
Used for basting, adding fat that promotes browning and a golden surface.
Gravy from the pan
Used for basting, returning pan juices to the birds for moisture and flavour.

The step that matters

Basting during roasting. Woodcock is a very lean bird that dries out easily. Regular basting with fat and pan juices keeps the surface moist and encourages even browning, so the bird should not be left unbasted for long stretches.

“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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