Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Woodcock

A stuffed woodcock cooked in bacon and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stewed Woodcock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bird

  1. Stuff the woodcock with a mixture of bacon, parsley, shallots, egg yolk, pepper, and salt.

  2. Truss the bird as for roasting and place it in a small earthenware stewpan on a thick slice of bacon.

Stew and serve

  1. Cover and cook for 15 minutes.

  2. Add the white wine and cook until done.

  3. Finish with a few drops of vinegar in the sauce and serve with the bird.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Shallot + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together881 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Woodcock
Provides the main meat, which is cooked gently in its own juices and wine.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that keeps the lean bird moist as it stews.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing so it holds together inside the bird.
Shallots
Add mild aromatic sweetness to the stuffing and the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and flavour to the liquid that forms the sauce.

The step that matters

Cover and cook for 15 minutes. Stewing in a covered pan at a gentle heat keeps the lean bird moist. Too much heat or too long a cook can toughen the meat and dry it out.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, egg, pepper, white wine, vinegar):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits less well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, egg, pepper, white wine, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes