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Dinner for 12 Persons. August.

A roasted capon served with a cream and herb sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dinner for 12 Persons. August.

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Rub the capon with coarse sea salt and let it sit for 30 minutes.

  3. In a large skillet, melt butter over medium heat and brown the capon on all sides.

Roast and make the sauce

  1. Transfer the capon to a roasting pan and roast for 1.5 hours, basting occasionally with chicken stock.

  2. In a saucepan, whisk together flour and cream over low heat until thickened.

  3. Stir in chopped herbs and serve the sauce with the roasted capon.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Chicken + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 protein, which cooks through during the long roast.
Butter
Adds fat and helps the capon brown in the skillet before roasting.
Chicken stock
Adds moisture and savory flavor when used for basting the capon.
Cream
Forms the body of the sauce and gives it a rich, smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a sauce as it heats and whisks together.

The step that matters

Whisking flour into the cream over low heat. Flour can clump if added to liquid carelessly; whisking while heating over low heat lets starch disperse and swell evenly, giving a smooth, thickened sauce rather than a lumpy one.

“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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