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Plovers, Roasted

Roasted plovers served on toast with bacon, butter, brown sauce, lemon, and watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 579 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Plovers, Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Pluck and truss the plovers without drawing them.

  2. Brush the birds with warm butter.

  3. Tie a slice of bacon over each breast.

Roast

  1. Roast the birds on a spit over a clear fire for 15 to 20 minutes, basting frequently with butter.

  2. Place slices of toast in the dripping tin to catch the juices.

  3. Shortly before serving, remove the bacon.

  4. Dredge the breasts lightly with flour.

  5. Baste again for a light brown appearance.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Prepare the brown sauce.

  2. Mix in the wine and juice of 1 lemon.

  3. Serve the plovers on the toast, garnished with watercress and lemon quarters.

  4. Serve the sauce in a sauceboat.

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. Lemon + watercresstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together579 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Sauce + watercresstop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together295 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Plovers
Provide the main meat, which cooks quickly over a hot fire and must be basted to stay moist.
Bacon
Covers the breasts while roasting, adding fat and flavour and protecting the lean meat from drying.
Butter
Basting fat that browns the skin and adds richness and moisture to the birds.
Toast
Soaks up the drippings and juices, serving as a base under the birds.
Port wine or claret
Adds acidity and depth to the sauce, balancing its richness.

The step that matters

Baste again for a light brown appearance.. Small birds roast fast and can dry out or brown unevenly. Repeated basting with butter keeps the meat moist and gives the skin an even golden colour.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Pearfits about as well
  4. Plumfits about as well

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