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Roast Fowl

A whole fowl stuffed with bread and butter, seasoned, trussed, and roasted until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Summer savory and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 263 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Draw and prepare the fowl.

  2. Fill the body with a dressing of bread and butter, seasoned with pepper, salt, and summer savory.

  3. Sew up the opening and truss the fowl.

  4. Oil the fowl with butter.

Roast and baste

  1. Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for the first half hour, heating all sides evenly.

  2. Baste the fowl all over every five minutes.

  3. After the first half hour, reduce the heat to 300°F (150°C) and roast for an additional 45 minutes or more until fully cooked.

  4. If not browned sufficiently, brush with egg yolk, sprinkle with flour, and roast a little longer until evenly browned.

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. Summer savory + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together263 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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

Whole fowl
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through to provide the meat.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture, helping the skin brown and the meat stay juicy.
Bread
Forms the dressing that fills the body, adding soft texture and absorbing juices.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the skin to promote even browning and a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Basting and checking the browning. Basting every few minutes spreads fat and juices over the skin, keeping it moist and promoting even browning. Skipping it can leave the skin dry and pale.

Swap the summer savory

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Summer savorythe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, pepper, egg, flour. 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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