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Stuffing for Baked or Roasted Fowls

A savory bread and oyster stuffing for baked or roasted fowls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stuffing for Baked or Roasted Fowls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread in cold water for 5 minutes, then squeeze it dry in a clean napkin.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the minced onion, and simmer without coloring.

Make the stuffing

  1. Add the soaked bread, parsley, celery, thyme, nutmeg, pepper, and salt, and heat thoroughly.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the cream, beaten eggs, and oysters until well combined.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the body of the stuffing and absorbs the butter and cream.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing together as they set with gentle heat.
Oysters
Add the main savoury flavour and moisture to the stuffing.
Butter
Carries the onion and celery flavour and adds richness.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the stuffing tender.

The step that matters

Remove from heat and stir in the cream, beaten eggs, and oysters. Eggs set when heated, so adding them to a very hot mixture can scramble them unevenly. Taking the pan off the heat first lets them bind the stuffing smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, parsley, celery, thyme, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, parsley, celery, thyme, nutmeg, pepper. 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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