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Widgeons, Roasted

Roasted widgeons basted with butter, served with watercress, lemon, and brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Widgeons, Roasted

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

  1. Truss the widgeons for roasting.

  2. Baste well with hot butter.

  3. Roast in front of a clear fire for about 20 minutes, or bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for the same time.

  4. Keep them well basted with hot butter.

  5. Shortly before serving, sprinkle lightly with flour.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Watercress + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together579 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Watercress + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Watercress + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Basting keeps the birds moist and gives the skin a golden, rich finish.
Flour (in the method)
A light dusting before serving helps the surface brown and crisp.

The step that matters

Keep them well basted with hot butter. Regular basting carries heat to the surface and replaces moisture lost in the roasting heat, which keeps lean game birds from drying out and helps the skin brown evenly.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, watercress, lemon, sauce, port wine, pepper, sugar):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, watercress, lemon, sauce, port wine, pepper, 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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