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Woodcocks En Croustades

Woodcocks stuffed with bacon, livers, truffles, and panada, braised in wine and broth, served with bread croustades.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Woodcocks En Croustades

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Singe and bone the woodcocks.

  2. Season them inside with salt and pepper.

  3. Break the backs and bones into small pieces.

  4. Fry them in butter until browned.

Make the sauce

  1. Cover the bones with white wine and broth.

  2. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  3. Strain the liquid into another pan.

  4. Boil until reduced to half glaze.

  5. Thicken with 2-3 tablespoons of sauce.

Make the stuffing

  1. Cook the trails of the woodcocks and chickens’ livers in bacon fat.

  2. Season.

  3. Cool.

  4. Pound with half the amount of chopped bacon and panada.

  5. Mix in 3-4 tablespoons of chopped raw truffles.

  6. Stuff the birds with this mixture.

Braise and serve

  1. Shape one bird round.

  2. Shape the others oval.

  3. Secure them with twine.

  4. Layer bacon rashers and sliced vegetables.

  5. Place the birds on top.

  6. Sprinkle with salt.

  7. Add equal parts white wine and broth to half their height.

  8. Cover.

  9. Braise the birds.

  10. Cut small croustades from bread.

  11. Shape them.

  12. Fry in fat until browned.

  13. Drain.

  14. Scoop out the bread pieces.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + turniptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Woodcocks
Main meat, cooked whole and braised so it stays moist and tender.
Butter
Browns the bones and birds, adding color and nutty flavor to the base sauce.
Chickens’ livers
Adds richness and a deep, savory body to the stuffing.
Chopped raw truffles
Contributes a strong, earthy aroma to the stuffing.
Bread
Forms crisp croustades that hold the birds and absorb the juices.
Panada
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when pounded and stuffed.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce until reduced to half glaze. Reducing concentrates the flavor and body of the bone and wine liquid. Under-reduced liquid stays thin and watery, while over-reduction can turn it salty and sticky.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, white wine, chicken, liver, truffle, carrot):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, white wine, chicken, liver, truffle, carrot. 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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