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Larks, and Other Small Birds

Roasted small birds seasoned with salt and pepper, basted with butter, and coated with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Larks, and Other Small Birds

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Draw the birds and spit them on a bird spit.

  2. Roast them gently, basting with butter.

  3. Strew bread crumbs on them until half done.

  4. Brown them and serve with fried crumbs around.

  5. Before roasting, wash the birds well and season the inside with salt and pepper.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Small birds
Provide the main meat, which stays tender when roasted gently.
Butter
Basting with butter adds moisture and helps the skin brown richly.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that adds texture and browning.

The step that matters

Strew the bread crumbs at half done. Crumbs added once the birds are partly cooked have a surface to cling to and can then brown evenly. Added too early, they may burn before the birds are done.

“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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