Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Boiled Fowl
Ingredients
Directions
Poach the fowl
Place the trussed fowl in warm water.
Add the boiled pork to the water and skim the surface.
Simmer the fowl for 1.5 hours.
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, knead flour into butter to form a paste.
Chop a few oysters and add them to the saucepan.
When heated, stir in the cream and beaten egg yolks.
Remove from heat when it reaches a boil.
Serve
Serve the sauce in a boat alongside the fowl.
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.
-
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
-
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Pork + creamtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,093 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Flour and butter 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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the cream sauce and enrich its texture when gently heated.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter into a paste that gives the sauce body.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and smooths the sauce.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, mellow texture.
The step that matters
Remove from heat when it reaches a boil. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated but curdle if they boil, so the sauce can turn grainy. Stopping at the boil protects its smooth texture.
“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 boiled fowl recipes
You might also like
Pork Cake107 recipes
Roast Pork82 recipes
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.