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Roasted Plovers

Roasted plovers served on toasted bread with bacon and lemon, accompanied by white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Roasted Plovers

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Pluck and clean the plovers, leaving the entrails inside.

  3. Tie a slice of bacon over the breast of each bird.

Roast and serve

  1. Place the birds in a roasting pan and roast in the oven.

  2. Baste the toast slices with butter in a dripping pan.

  3. Remove the bacon from the birds before serving and dust with salt.

  4. Serve each plover on a slice of toast, garnished with lemon quarters and accompanied by white sauce.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Lemon + saucetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Plovers
Provide the main meat, which roasts tender and juicy in the oven.
Fat bacon
Wraps the breast, basting the lean meat with rendered fat as it roasts.
Butter
Enriches the toast with fat, adding richness and promoting browning.
Toast slices
Soak up drippings and butter, serving as a base under each bird.

The step that matters

Removing the bacon before serving. The bacon has rendered its fat and crisped during roasting, so it is removed before serving to keep the birds from tasting greasy, then salt is added to season the meat directly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce. 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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