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Grouse, Roast

A roasted grouse served on toast with butter, gravy, bread sauce, breadcrumbs, and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Grouse, Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Hang the birds in a cool, dry place for 3 to 4 days.

  2. Pluck, draw, and truss the grouse like roast chicken.

  3. Tie a thin slice of bacon over each breast.

Roast

  1. Roast the grouse before a clear fire for 30 to 35 minutes, basting frequently with butter.

  2. When nearly done, remove the bacon, dredge with flour, and baste well for a nice brown appearance.

  3. Toast the bread lightly and place it in the dripping-tin to catch the gravy.

Serve

  1. Dish the grouse on the toast and serve the gravy, bread sauce, and breadcrumbs separately.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Bread + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Grouse
The main meat, whose flavour develops through hanging and roasting.
Bacon
Lays over the breast to baste the lean meat and add savoury fat as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, helping the skin brown and the meat stay moist.
Flour (in the method)
Dredged over the birds near the end to help build a brown surface.
Toast
Soaks up drippings in the tin and serves as a base under the birds.

The step that matters

Removing the bacon and dredging with flour. Timing matters: removing the bacon near the end lets the breast brown without burning, and flour helps create a golden surface through browning reactions.

“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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