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To Pot Woodcocks

A dish of woodcocks cooked in butter and clarified butter, seasoned with mace, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Pot Woodcocks

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the birds

  1. Pluck the woodcocks.

  2. Draw the woodcocks.

  3. Skewer their bills through their thighs.

  4. Put their legs through each other with their feet on their breasts.

  5. Season with mace, pepper, and salt.

  6. Place in a deep pot.

  7. Cover with butter.

Bake

  1. Tie strong paper over the pot.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).

Pot and store

  1. Drain the gravy.

  2. Place the woodcocks on a dish.

  3. Transfer to potting-pots.

  4. Pour clear butter from the gravy over them.

  5. Fill with clarified butter.

  6. Store in a dry place.

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. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Mace + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Woodcocks
Form the main body of the dish, with their rich flesh cooked gently in butter.
Butter
Surrounds the birds during baking, keeping them moist and sealing them for storage.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the birds.

The step that matters

Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C). The birds are cooked slowly under a sealed paper cover and butter. Too hot an oven can scorch the butter and dry the meat, while too little heat leaves it undercooked.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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