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Fowl, Ct LA Montmorency

A roasted fowl stuffed with a forcemeat of liver, bacon, suet, mushrooms, truffles, and butter, simmered in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Truffle and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,900 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Lard the breast and upper part of the fowl.

  2. Chop and mix the liver, bacon, suet, truffles, mushrooms, salt, pepper, and butter to make a forcemeat.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and add to the forcemeat to moisten it.

  4. Stuff the fowl with the forcemeat and sew up the opening.

Simmer the fowl

  1. Place trimmings of meat, bacon slices, carrots, and onions in a stewpan.

  2. Add the fowl on top of the trimmings.

  3. Pour in stock as required and let the fowl simmer gently for 2 hours, basting with the sauce.

  4. Transfer the fowl to a hot dish.

Make the sauce and finish

  1. Skim and strain the sauce into another stewpan.

  2. Reduce the sauce until it is a glaze.

  3. Place the fowl back in the sauce with the larded side downwards.

  4. When nicely browned, serve on a hot dish and pour the sauce over 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Truffle + mushroomtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together12,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Pepper + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat and help it hold together and stay moist during cooking.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and rich as it cooks.
Liver of fowl
Provides a rich, savoury flavour and body to the forcemeat stuffing.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and smoky flavour to the forcemeat and the braising liquid.
Fowl
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked slowly by simmering until tender.

The step that matters

Reducing the sauce to a glaze. Reducing concentrates the flavour and thickens the liquid as water evaporates. If it is reduced too little the sauce stays thin and bland; too far and it becomes salty or sticky.

Flavor stand-ins for the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, beef, truffle, mushroom, pepper, butter, egg):

  1. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, beef, truffle, mushroom, pepper, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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