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Larded Grouse

A roasted grouse larded with lard, seasoned with salt and butter, then coated in flour and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Larded Grouse

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clean and wash the grouse.

  2. Lard the breast and legs of the grouse.

  3. Insert a small skewer into the legs and through the tail, then tie firmly with twine.

  4. Dredge the grouse with coarse sea salt and rub the breast with soft butter.

  5. Dredge thickly with flour.

Roast and serve

  1. Place the grouse in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. Cook for 20 minutes for rare or 30 minutes for well done.

  3. If using a tin kitchen, cook for 30 to 35 minutes.

  4. When done, place the grouse on a hot dish spread with bread sauce.

  5. Sprinkle fried crumbs over the grouse and sauce, and garnish with parsley.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Butter and flour 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

Grouse
Is the main meat, cooked whole so the breast and legs stay moist and tender.
Lard
Coats the lean breast meat with fat, keeping it moist and helping it brown during roasting.
Soft butter
Enriches the surface of the breast, adding fat for richer flavour and golden browning.
Flour
Dusted over the bird, it helps form a crisp, browned crust on the outside.

The step that matters

Choosing the cooking time for doneness. Grouse is lean and dries out quickly, so the gap between rare and well done is small. Cooking past the chosen time toughens the meat and loses its juices, so check the bird early.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, bread, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Jalapenofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, bread, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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