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To Lard Meat, Fowls, Sweetbreads, Etc.

A method of inserting bacon strips into meat, fowls, or sweetbreads to keep them moist during slow cooking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Lard Meat, Fowls, Sweetbreads, Etc.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut bacon into small strips called lardoons.

  2. Insert lardoons into the meat using a larding needle.

Braise

  1. Place the meat in a stewpan and cover it with thick slices of bacon.

  2. Add six to eight onions, a bundle of sweet herbs, celery, and thick slices of carrots around the meat.

  3. Include any fresh meat-bones and pour in 1½ pints of water or stock.

  4. Season to taste, cover the pan, and cook over low heat for 2 to 3 hours.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Onion + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Celery + meattop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,880 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Melts fat that bastes the meat and adds savoury flavour as it cooks.
Onions
Soften and sweeten slowly, adding aroma to the braising liquid.
Carrots
Release natural sugars during slow cooking, adding sweetness and body.
Water or stock
Provides the moist cooking liquid that gently braises the meat.

The step that matters

Keep the heat low and the pan covered. Low, covered cooking keeps the liquid at a gentle simmer, so tough connective tissue breaks down slowly into tender meat without drying or toughening it.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, carrot, meat):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, carrot, meat. 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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