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Grouse, Broiled with Bacon

Broiled grouse served over toasted bread with butter and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Grouse, Broiled with Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Singe, draw, and wipe the grouse clean.

  2. Split each grouse in half through the back without separating the parts.

  3. Season the grouse with salt, pepper, and sweet oil, then roll them well.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the grouse on a brisk fire for 7 minutes on each side.

  2. Prepare a hot dish with the toasts and arrange the grouse over them.

  3. Spread the Maitre d’Hotel butter on top and garnish with the bacon slices.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grouse
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to tender meat under direct heat.
Maitre d’hotel butter
Melts over the hot birds, adding richness and moisture to the meat.
Bacon
Renders fat as it cooks, basting the grouse and adding savory flavor.
Toasts
Soak up drippings and juices, giving the grouse a crisp, absorbent base.

The step that matters

Broil on a brisk fire. Grouse is lean, so high direct heat for a set time sears the outside and sets the juices inside. Too little heat dries the meat slowly, and too long overcooks it.

“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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