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Stuffing for Fowl

A butter and onion base mixed with bread crumbs, parsley, milk, eggs, and optional oysters, used to stuff fowl.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffing for Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stuffing

  1. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the minced onion and simmer without browning.

  3. Stir in the bread crumbs, chopped parsley, salt, and pepper.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in enough milk to moisten.

  5. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

Stuff the fowl

  1. Season the inside of the fowl with salt and pepper.

  2. Fill the neck with stuffing and tie with strong thread.

  3. Fill the body and sew up the opening.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the stuffing and absorb the milk and butter.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs so the stuffing stays tender rather than dry.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together when filled into the fowl.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the stuffing.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor when softened in the butter.

The step that matters

Add the milk only enough to moisten. Bread crumbs soak up liquid quickly. Too much milk makes the stuffing soggy and dense, while too little leaves it dry. Adding it off the heat lets you judge the texture before the eggs are mixed in.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, parsley, pepper, milk, egg, oyster):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, parsley, pepper, milk, egg, oyster. 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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