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Ortolans, Roasted

Roasted ortolans served on toast with watercress, accompanied by gravy and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and watercress work together. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 842 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Ortolans, Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Remove the head, neck, and crop from the ortolans, leaving the trail intact.

  2. Truss the birds for roasting and brush them with warm butter.

  3. Cover each bird's breast with a bay leaf or vine leaf and tie thin slices of bacon over them.

  4. Skewer the birds with a long steel skewer through their bodies.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the birds in front of a hot fire for about 10 minutes, basting continuously with hot butter.

  2. Place toast underneath to catch the drippings.

  3. Once cooked, remove the skewers and strings; the bacon can remain if desired and be brushed with warm glaze.

  4. Serve the ortolans on the toast, garnished with watercress, and serve the gravy and breadcrumbs 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. Butter + watercresstop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together842 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ortolans
Provide the main meat, which cooks quickly and stays moist when basted with butter.
Butter
Basting fat that carries heat to the surface and adds richness and browning.
Bacon
Lays over the breast to add fat and savoury flavour as it renders during roasting.
Toast
Soaks up the drippings beneath the birds, adding flavour and a base to serve on.

The step that matters

Basting continuously during roasting. Frequent basting with hot butter keeps the small birds' lean meat moist and promotes even browning over a short, intense cook.

“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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