Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 122,858 recipes mention both. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare
Stuff, truss, and dress the fawn as you would a hare.
Cut the fawn into quarters and roast it over a brisk fire.
Roast and finish
Baste the fawn continuously during cooking, or skewer slices of bacon over it to keep it moist.
When nearly done, baste with butter and sprinkle with salt and flour.
Serve dry with sauce on the side or with rich 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together122,858 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fawn
- Is the meat being cooked, so its tenderness and juiciness depend on the roasting method.
- Fat bacon
- Slices laid over the meat melt during roasting, adding moisture and fat to lean game.
- Butter
- Basting with butter adds fat and helps the surface brown and taste richer.
- Flour
- Sprinkled on near the end, it helps form a light browned crust on the outside.
The step that matters
Basting throughout roasting. Lean game meat dries out easily over a brisk fire, so regular basting or bacon slices help keep the surface moist while it cooks.
“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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