Name: Roasted Snipes and Luoodcocks
Ingredients: 2 snipes or luoodcocks; ¼ cup flour; 1 piece of butter; 1 slice of bread, toasted brown; ¼ pint gravy; 1 lemon, for garnish

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Roasted Snipes and Luoodcocks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

Spit the snipes or woodcocks on a small bird spit.
Flour and baste them with butter.

Roast and serve

Place the toasted bread in a dish under the birds to catch the drippings.
Once cooked, remove the birds and place them on the toast.
Heat the gravy and butter together for 2-3 minutes.
Pour the gravy over the birds and garnish with lemon 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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,404 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,445 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they 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

Snipes or woodcocks: Provide the main meat, which is cooked whole on a spit.
Flour: Dusted over the birds to help form a light browned coating.
Butter: Basting fat that adds richness and helps the birds brown.
Toasted bread: Catches the drippings and soaks up juices to serve under the birds.
Gravy: Adds moisture and savoury flavour over the cooked birds.