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Potted Squabs

Potted Squabs are squabs stewed with onion, flour, stock, mushrooms, and Sherry wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,324 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Squabs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the squabs

  1. Season the cleaned squabs with salt, pepper, and ginger.

  2. Stuff the squabs with Liver Dressing.

Brown and make the sauce

  1. Heat the poultry fat or butter in a kettle.

  2. Brown the squabs.

  3. Remove the squabs from the kettle.

  4. Add the chopped onion to the fat.

  5. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  6. Gradually add the hot soup stock or water. Stir the mixture well.

  7. Season the mixture with pepper, salt, ginger, and nutmeg.

Cook and finish

  1. Return the squabs to the kettle. Cover the kettle.

  2. Cook slowly for 2 hours.

  3. Add the heated mushrooms.

  4. Add the chopped parsley.

  5. Add the Sherry wine before serving.

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. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Ginger + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Squabs
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, covered cooking in liquid.
Poultry fat or butter
Carries the browning of the squabs and the onion, adding richness and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Soup stock or hot water
Forms the moist cooking liquid that braises the squabs and dissolves the flavour from the pan.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and a fragrant, sweet-dry aroma to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Brown the squabs. Browning creates flavourful Maillard compounds on the skin and surface. Searing before the slow covered cook builds the depth the sauce depends on, and pale, under-browned birds taste flat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (squab, pepper, ginger, liver, butter, flour, nutmeg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against squab, pepper, ginger, liver, butter, flour, nutmeg. 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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