Why it works: Port wine and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,804 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓
Moor-fowl Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the birds
Boil 5 moor-fowl in 4 quarts of water.
Pound the breasts in a mortar and rub them through a sieve.
Simmer the soup
Add the pounded breasts, legs, backs, and the 3 additional moor-fowl to the boiling water.
Season with 1 pint of port wine, pepper, and coarse sea salt.
Let it boil for 1 hour.
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.
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Port wine + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,804 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Moor-fowl
- Supplies the meat and rich flavor that form the body of the soup.
- Port wine
- Adds sweetness, depth, and aroma to the broth.
“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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