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Fowl, HSiSlied.

A cold roast fowl served with a curry‑flavored sauce made from gravy, spices, and apple.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fowl, HSiSlied.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry sauce

  1. Cut the onions into slices and fry them in the butter until brown.

  2. Add the minced apple, pounded mace, pepper, salt, curry powder, vinegar, flour, and sugar.

  3. Stir in the gravy made from the bones and trimmings of the fowl and stew for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the fowl into nice-sized joints and add to the pot, warming through until tender.

  2. Serve garnished with boiled rice.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour 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

Fowl
Provides the main cooked meat, which becomes tender as it warms in the sauce.
Onions
Browning in butter builds sweetness and depth for the sauce base.
Butter
Carries the frying of the onions and adds richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so the sauce clings to the fowl.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma that defines the sauce.
Gravy
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavours and moisture of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stewing the sauce with the fowl. Stewing for 30 minutes lets the flour thicken the gravy and the spices mellow. Adding the fowl only to warm it through keeps the meat from toughening, so heat should stay gentle once the joints go in.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, apple, butter, pepper, vinegar, flour, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, apple, butter, pepper, vinegar, flour, sugar. 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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