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Peafowl, Larded and Roasted

A whole peafowl larded with veal forcemeat, roasted and served with brown gravy and watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and watercress work together. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 40 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Peafowl, Larded and Roasted

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. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Lard the peafowl closely over the breast and legs.

  3. If using, fill the bird with veal forcemeat.

  4. Truss the bird firmly.

Roast

  1. Roast the peafowl in the oven for 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on its size.

  2. Remove the buttered paper from around the head when done.

Finish and serve

  1. Trim the feathers and glaze the larding.

  2. Serve the bird on a hot dish with a little brown gravy underneath.

  3. Garnish with watercress and serve bread sauce in a tureen.

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. Veal + watercresstop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Peafowl
Provides the main meat, which is roasted whole until cooked through.
Lard
Covers the breast and legs, keeping the lean meat moist and helping it brown.
Veal forcemeat
Optional stuffing that adds richness and moisture to the inside of the bird.

The step that matters

Roast for the right time. Birds of different sizes need different times, and lean game meat dries out quickly if overcooked. Checking doneness against the bird's size helps keep the meat juicy.

“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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