Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Roast Fowl
Ingredients
Directions
Roast the fowl
Place the fowl before a good fire with a little salt in a pan of water.
Baste with the salted water until the fowl begins to brown.
Then baste with fresh butter.
Make the gravy
Boil the necks, gizzards, hearts, and liver to make gravy.
Remove the necks and chop the giblets finely.
Thicken the gravy with browned flour rubbed into a piece of butter.
Serve the gravy in a boat.
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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Butter + livertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,065 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
Liver + flourtop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,418 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Fowl
- Forms the main body of the dish and provides the meat and drippings for basting.
- Fresh butter
- Adds fat and flavour and helps the skin brown during basting.
- Browned flour
- Thickens the gravy, giving it body as it is rubbed into butter.
- Necks, gizzards, hearts, and liver
- Simmered to make a flavourful stock that forms the base of the gravy.
The step that matters
Basting until the fowl begins to brown. Basting keeps the surface moist while the fat and heat promote browning. Stopping too early leaves the skin pale, and basting too little dries the meat.
“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 roast chicken recipes
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 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.