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Baked Squab

A dish of squabs roasted with butter, flour, salt, pepper, and steamed in water before baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked Squab

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Clean and split the squabs down the back.

  2. Place them in a roasting pan and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Dredge the squabs with flour and place large pieces of butter on top.

Steam and bake

  1. Pour hot water over the squabs and cover the pan.

  2. Steam on the stove for 2 hours.

  3. Remove the lid and bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) until browned.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Squab + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Squab + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Squabs
The main protein, which becomes tender through steaming and then browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the skin brown and the surface turn golden.
Flour
Dusted on the birds, it helps the surface brown and gives a light crust.
Hot water
Creates steam in the covered pan, gently cooking the birds before browning.

The step that matters

Remove the lid and bake until browned. After long covered steaming the birds are moist but pale. Baking uncovered at high heat dries the surface and drives browning, so the skin must be left open long enough to colour.

“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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