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Ridges of Fowls, Larded

A roasted fowl shoulder seasoned with salt, pepper, and herbs, cooked with lard and vegetables, served with a thickened sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Ridges of Fowls, Larded

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Remove the skin from the shoulder of fowl and trim excess fat.

  3. Rub the fowl with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Roast

  1. In a large skillet, heat lard or butter over medium heat. Add onion, carrot, and celery; sauté until softened.

  2. Place the fowl in a roasting pan and pour the sautéed vegetables over it.

  3. Add chicken broth, bay leaf, and thyme to the pan.

  4. Cover with foil and roast for 1.5 hours, basting occasionally.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Remove the fowl, strain the liquid, and return it to the skillet.

  2. Stir in flour to thicken the sauce, cooking until bubbly. Serve with the fowl.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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

Fowl
Provides the meat that is roasted until cooked through and tender.
Lard or butter
Adds fat for sautéing the vegetables and gives a rich, savory flavor.
Chicken broth
Keeps the pan moist during roasting and forms the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the strained cooking liquid into a sauce as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour into the sauce. Flour must cook until bubbly so its starch swells and thickens the liquid without leaving a raw, pasty taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, carrot, celery, chicken, thyme, flour):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, carrot, celery, chicken, thyme, 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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