Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Fowl a LA Hollandaise
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.
Prepare
Mix grated bread, minced suet, onion or oysters, boiled parsley, pepper, coarse sea salt, grated lemon peel, and beaten egg to make a forcemeat.
Bone the breast of a young fowl and fill it with the forcemeat.
Cover the fowl with a buttered piece of white paper.
Roast and batter
Roast the fowl for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).
Prepare a thick batter with flour, milk, and eggs.
Remove the paper and pour some batter over the fowl.
Add more batter as it dries until fully crusted and golden brown.
Serve
Serve with melted butter and lemon pickle or thickened brown gravy.
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.
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Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,037 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together25,843 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Bind the forcemeat and set the batter into a crust that browns when baked.
- Flour
- Forms the body of the thick batter, which sets into a crisp golden coating.
- Milk
- Loosens the flour and eggs into a batter that bakes into a tender, browned crust.
- Suet
- Adds fat to the forcemeat, keeping the stuffing moist and rich as it roasts.
- Grated bread
- Provides bulk in the forcemeat, soaking up fat and holding the stuffing together.
The step that matters
Adding batter in layers as it dries. Batter poured all at once can pool or stay pale. Adding more as each layer dries builds an even crust that sets and browns in the oven.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, parsley, pepper, lemon, egg, flour, milk):
- Shallotfits better
- Spinachfits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, pepper, lemon, egg, flour, milk. 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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