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Woodcock Roasted

A roasted woodcock wrapped in pork or bacon, served with liver paste and toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and watercress work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 983 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Woodcock Roasted

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 the bird

  1. Cut off the feet and tie the legs close to the body.

  2. Skin the head and neck, then tie the peak under the wings.

  3. Wrap the bird in thin slices of pork or bacon.

Roast and make the liver paste

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10-15 minutes, basting with butter.

  2. Clean and cook the hearts and livers in boiling salted water, then pound to a paste and season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Butter the toast, cover with the liver paste, and place the bird on top, moistening with butter from the pan.

  2. Garnish with watercress or parsley.

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. Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pork + watercresstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Woodcock
Is the main bird; its lean meat is cooked whole and served on the toast.
Pork or bacon
Wraps the bird, protecting lean meat from drying and adding savory fat as it roasts.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and promotes browning when basted over the bird.
Toast
Soaks up drippings and liver paste, giving the bird a crisp, flavorful base.

The step that matters

Wrapping and basting the bird in the hot oven. Woodcock is very lean and cooks quickly, so the fat wrap and butter basting protect it from drying out. Overcooking in the hot oven will toughen the meat, so the short roasting time matters.

“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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