Why it works: Onion and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Roast Fowl
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fowl
Pick the fowl.
Draw the fowl.
Wipe the fowl.
Singe the fowl.
Truss the fowl.
Season and wrap
Place an onion and butter inside the fowl.
Tie the bacon over the breast.
Roast and serve
Roast the fowl slowly before a bright fire, basting occasionally.
Strain the gravy.
Pour the gravy under the fowl.
Garnish with watercresses.
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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Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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 as it roasts and browning on the outside.
- Bacon
- Lays fat over the breast, adding moisture and savoury flavour as it renders during roasting.
- Onion
- Sits inside the bird, adding aroma and flavour to the meat as it cooks.
- Butter
- Adds fat that carries flavour, keeps the meat moist and promotes browning on the skin.
The step that matters
Roast slowly, basting occasionally. Slow roasting lets heat reach the centre of the bird before the outside over-browns. Basting spreads melted fat and juices over the surface, keeping the skin moist and golden rather than dry.
“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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