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Snipe on Toast

Snipe on Toast is a dish of snipe wrapped in ham or bacon, fried in lard, seasoned with pepper and salt, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,058 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Snipe on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the snipe

  1. Dress the snipe and wrap a thin piece of fat ham or bacon around the breast of each bird.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the snipe in boiling lard for two minutes.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Serve each snipe on a piece of toast.

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. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Snipe
Is the main protein, cooked quickly so the meat stays tender and moist.
Fat ham or bacon
Wraps the breast, melting as it cooks to baste the lean meat and add savoury flavour.
Boiling lard
Conducts heat rapidly for a fast fry, browning the surface and adding richness.
Toast
Gives a crisp, absorbent base that holds the juices and contrasts with the soft meat.

The step that matters

Frying the snipe in boiling lard for two minutes. Small birds cook through very quickly, so two minutes in hot fat is enough to brown the surface while keeping the meat juicy. Longer frying dries out the lean breast.

“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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