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A Kid

A roast of a young sucking kid seasoned with pepper and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and 85,512 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Ensure the kid is in prime condition and well-fed.

  2. Wipe the kid dry and rub the inside with pepper.

  3. Hang it in a dry, cool place.

  4. Truss the kid after paunching and skinning it.

Roast

  1. Roast it like a fawn or hare.

  2. Baste with drippings while roasting for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  3. When nearly done, baste with a bit of butter.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pepper + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together85,512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Kid
The main meat, whose tender flesh becomes the centrepiece of the roast.
Drippings
Basting fat that adds moisture and browning to the surface as it roasts.
Butter
Added near the end of roasting to add richness and a golden, aromatic finish.

The step that matters

Basting with drippings during roasting. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and encourages even browning, while the meat's lean flesh can dry out if left unbasted over the roughly 1 hour 15 minute roast.

“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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