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Black-Diver - with Chocolate Sauce

A roasted Black Diver served with chocolate-flavored sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and white wine work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 620 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Black-Diver - with Chocolate Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Pick and draw the Black Diver, then dry it well on a cloth.

  2. Rub the bird with brandy.

  3. Brown it over a slow fire.

Cook and serve

  1. Place it in an earthenware jar with laurel leaves, fine herbs, salt, and enough white wine to moisten.

  2. Simmer gently on the side of the fire until the bird is done.

  3. Serve on a dish and pour over chocolate-flavored sauce.

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. Brandy + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together620 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Brandy + chocolatetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together287 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Laurel + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. White wine + saucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together819 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Brandy + laureltop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-hex-3-en-1-ol (freshly cut grass green and herbaceous notes).

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

What each ingredient does

Black diver
Provides the main meat that is slowly cooked until tender.
Brandy
Rubbed on the bird to add a rich aroma to the skin.
White wine
Adds moisture in the jar so the bird stays juicy as it simmers.
Chocolate-flavored sauce
Adds sweetness and a rich, dark flavor to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Simmer gently on the side of the fire. A gentle simmer cooks the meat slowly so its proteins stay tender. Boiling or strong heat tightens the muscle fibres and makes the bird dry and tough.

“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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