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Roast Fowl and Boiled Bacon, with Bread Sauce

A roasted fowl stuffed with bread crumb mixture, served with boiled bacon and a bread sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Roast Fowl and Boiled Bacon, with Bread Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fowl

  1. Ensure the fowl is properly dressed, wipe it with a clean wet cloth, singe off hairs, and remove any leftover feathers.

  2. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, suet, parsley, lemon thyme, marjoram, pepper, salt, and nutmeg, then add the egg and stir until combined.

  3. Roll the mixture into balls.

  4. Stuff the fowl's crop with the mixture.

  5. Tie the neck skin.

  6. Fill the inside of the fowl with the remaining stuffing.

  7. Sew the opening shut.

  8. Secure the legs and wings with skewers.

Baste and roast

  1. Warm butter.

  2. Coat the outside of the fowl with butter.

  3. Dredge the fowl with flour.

  4. Roast the fowl in a preheated oven at 400 °F (200 °C) for 1 hour and 20 minutes, basting frequently after the first 30 minutes.

  5. A quarter of an hour before the fowl is done, baste it well.

  6. Dredge the fowl lightly with flour to achieve an even brown.

Prepare the bacon

  1. Scrape the bacon clean.

  2. Boil the bacon for 30 minutes.

  3. Remove the rind from the bacon before serving.

  4. Reserve the rind for stock.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Lemon + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through as the roast's protein.
Suet
Adds fat and moisture to the stuffing, keeping it tender as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and fat, giving the stuffing a soft, binding texture.
Egg
Binds the stuffing mixture so it holds together when rolled and stuffed.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and a rich, golden skin.
Bacon
Contributes savory, salty fat to the dish.

The step that matters

Basting frequently after the first 30 minutes. Spooning fat over the bird keeps the skin from drying out and helps it brown evenly. Skipping or delaying basting leaves the skin pale and dry while the meat cooks.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, parsley, lemon, thyme, marjoram, pepper, egg):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, lemon, thyme, marjoram, pepper, egg. 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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