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Reed Birds

Reed Birds are fish fillets seasoned with pepper and sea salt, broiled and served on buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Reed Birds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick the reed birds.

  2. Open the reed birds.

  3. Wash the reed birds carefully.

  4. Place the reed birds in a clean towel.

  5. Crush the bones flat with a rolling pin.

  6. Season the reed birds with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Broil and serve

  1. Spread the reed birds in a folding gridiron.

  2. Broil the reed birds over a clear fire, starting with the inside.

  3. Turn the gridiron.

  4. Baste the reed birds well with fresh butter.

  5. Serve the reed birds on buttered toast.

  6. Season the served reed birds with pepper and salt.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Reed birds
Form the main substance of the dish, cooked whole after being opened and flattened.
Butter
Basting adds fat and moisture to the birds and helps them brown in the broiling.
Buttered toast
Serves as a soft base that soaks up juices and butter under the cooked birds.

The step that matters

Broil the reed birds over a clear fire, starting with the inside.. A clear, steady fire gives even heat without smoke or flare-ups. Starting inside-up lets the flesh cook through before the skin side chars, so the birds stay moist.

“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.

More reed birds recipes

on Toast 8Roasted 7Broiled 5Stewed 5Fried 3 See all 14 →

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