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Teal, Roast

Roasted teal served with butter, gravy, orange sauce, watercress, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Teal, Roast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Pluck, draw, and truss the teal for roasting.

  2. Brush the teal with hot fat.

Roast

  1. Roast in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes, basting frequently.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish, garnished with watercress and lemon quarters, and serve the sauce separately.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Watercress + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together579 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Orange + watercresstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Teal
The main protein, which becomes tender and cooked through during roasting.
Butter or good fat
Coats the bird, carrying heat to the skin and encouraging browning and a rich flavour.
Lemons
Provide acidity and fresh aroma that brighten the rich, fatty meat.

The step that matters

Roast in a moderate oven, basting frequently. Teal is a small, lean bird that dries out quickly. Frequent basting with fat keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly while the interior cooks through.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce, watercress, lemon):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, watercress, lemon. 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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