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Broiled Fowl

A whole fowl roasted on a grill, served with fried chip potatoes and tomato or mushroom sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,798 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Broiled Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Grill

  1. Grease the bars of a hot grill.

  2. Place the fowl on the grill with its back facing the fire.

  3. Broil the fowl over a clear fire for 20 minutes, turning it frequently.

  4. Brush the fowl with butter just before it finishes cooking.

Serve

  1. Once cooked, place the fowl on a very hot dish.

  2. Garnish with fried chip potatoes and pour tomato or mushroom sauce around it before serving.

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. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through over the fire while staying moist with basting.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown and gain flavour as it is brushed on near the end.

The step that matters

Brush with butter just before it finishes cooking. Butter applied late coats the surface without burning during the long broil, helping it brown and stay moist. Applied too early, it can scorch over the fire.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, potato, tomato, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, potato, tomato, lemon. 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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