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Roast Fowl, with Gravy and Bread Sauce

A roasted fowl served with a savory gravy and bread sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Roast Fowl, with Gravy and Bread Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and roast

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Spread fresh lard on a sheet of white paper.

  3. Wrap the fowl in the lard-wrapped paper.

  4. Hang the fowl before the fire for 10 minutes.

  5. Move the fowl further away until cooked.

  6. Baste the fowl frequently.

  7. Ten minutes before serving, remove the paper.

  8. Baste the fowl with dissolved butter.

Make the gravy

  1. In a stew pan, rub the bottom with garlic.

  2. Add butter, onion, carrot, celery, beef, veal, ham, mushrooms, truffles, clove, mace, white peppercorns, loaf sugar, mustard flour, coarse sea salt and parsley to the stew pan.

  3. Let the mixture sit by the fire for an hour to brown the meat and extract the gravy.

  4. Add warm water to the stew pan.

  5. Simmer gently for 3.5 hours.

  6. Skim frequently.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix baked flour with white wine and stir the mixture.

  2. Boil fast.

  3. Skim for 20 minutes.

  4. Strain the gravy.

  5. Place the fowl on a hot dish.

  6. Remove any skewers from the fowl.

  7. Pour a little gravy into the dish (not over the fowl).

  8. Serve the rest of the gravy in a tureen.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh lard
Fat that coats the bird and helps the skin brown while keeping the meat moist.
Butter
Fat used for basting and enriching the flavour of the finished gravy.
Lean beef
Browns during the long rest by the fire and releases savoury flavour into the gravy.
Baked flour
Starch that thickens the gravy once it is mixed with wine and brought to a boil.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich, meaty gravy.
Truffles
Add a concentrated earthy aroma to the gravy.

The step that matters

Boil fast after adding the baked flour and wine. Starch in flour only thickens fully when it reaches a boil, and a brief rolling boil also cooks out the raw floury taste. Stirring while it heats prevents lumps from forming.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, carrot, beef, veal, ham, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, carrot, beef, veal, ham, mushroom. 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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