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Poulet Aux Cressons

A roasted chicken served with watercress, vinegar, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and 13,580 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Poulet Aux Cressons

4 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Roast the fowl

  1. Truss and roast a fowl by recipe, taking care that it is nicely frosted and brown.

Prepare and assemble

  1. Wash and dry the watercress, pick them nicely, and arrange them in a flat layer on a dish.

  2. Sprinkle a little salt and the vinegar over the watercress. If desired, omit the vinegar.

  3. Place the fowl over the watercress.

  4. Pour the gravy over the fowl.

  5. Serve a little gravy in a tureen.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Vinegar + mushroomtop 18% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the roasted meat.
Watercress (in the method)
Forms the bed under the fowl, adding a fresh, peppery leafy base.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour over the fowl and into the serving tureen.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the watercress and cuts the richness of the meat.

The step that matters

Roast the fowl until nicely frosted and brown. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction between proteins and sugars at high dry heat. Pale or under-browned skin looks unappetising and lacks the roasted flavour the dish depends on.

“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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