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Capon, Roast

A roasted capon stuffed with truffles and forcemeat, served with a truffle butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Truffle and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Capon, Roast

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.

Prepare

  1. Truss the capon like a turkey.

  2. Add forcemeat and sliced truffles fried in butter inside the capon.

  3. Cover the breast with buttered paper.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.

  2. Reduce heat and cook for 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on size.

  3. Serve with a sauce made of pounded truffles and butter.

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. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Truffle + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,490 recipes

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

Capon
Provides the main body of meat that cooks through during roasting.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness, and browns the paper-covered breast and truffles.
Truffles
Contribute a strong earthy aroma to the stuffing and the sauce.

“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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