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Boiled Capons

A boiled capon served with rice, egg yolks, and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Boiled Capons

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the capon

  1. Truss the capon for boiling and place it in an oval stewpan.

  2. Add the onion with cloves, carrot, and enough white broth to cover the breast of the fowl.

  3. Cover with buttered paper and place the lid on the stewpan.

  4. Boil gently on low heat for about 1 hour.

  5. Once done, drain the fowl and remove the strings.

Garnish and serve

  1. Place the capon on a dish and garnish with rice mixed with white sauce, egg yolks, mignonette pepper, nutmeg, and butter.

  2. Heat the rice over a brisk stove for 5 minutes, then mold it into large egg shapes with two tablespoons and arrange around the capon.

  3. Sauce the capon with Supreme or Bechamel sauce before serving.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Capon
Is the main cooked meat, gently poached so it stays moist and tender.
Egg yolks
Bind the rice mixture so it holds its shape when molded.
White sauce
Adds moisture and richness to the rice garnish.
Fresh butter
Adds fat and richness to the rice garnish.
Supreme or bechamel sauce
Adds a smooth, creamy coating that moistens the poached capon.

The step that matters

Gentle boiling of the capon. Boiling vigorously toughens the proteins in the meat and can make it dry and stringy. A low, gentle simmer cooks the bird evenly and keeps it tender and juicy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, carrot, rice, sauce, egg, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, carrot, rice, sauce, egg, pepper, nutmeg. 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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