Name: Roast Grouse
Ingredients: grouse; slices of toast; broth; butter; watercress; fried breadcrumbs (optional); parsley

Why it works: Watercress and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 469 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Roast Grouse

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 the grouse as you would partridge, allowing less cooking time.
Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 25 minutes, adjusting for size.
Check doneness by pressing with a fork; the meat should feel elastic.
Serve the sauce from the pan in a sauceboat.
Dish the grouse on buttered toast moistened with broth.
Garnish with watercress or fried breadcrumbs and parsley.
Serve with a salad.

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.

Watercress + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together469 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + watercresstop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together842 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).