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Widgeons, Roasted

Roasted widgeons served with a brown sauce and garnished with watercress and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

Widgeons, Roasted

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and roast

  1. Truss the widgeons for roasting.

  2. Baste well with hot butter.

  3. Roast in front of a clear fire or bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 20 minutes.

  4. Baste frequently during roasting.

  5. Shortly before serving, sprinkle lightly with flour for appearance.

Make the sauce

  1. Meanwhile, prepare the brown sauce, adding the wine, lemon juice, orange juice, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  2. Simmer for 15 minutes, then strain and skim.

Serve

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

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 + orangetop 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Watercress + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Watercress + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Widgeons
Is the main protein, cooked by roasting so the meat becomes tender and browned.
Butter
Basting with hot butter adds fat that carries heat to the surface, promoting browning and flavour.
Brown sauce
Forms the base of the sauce, adding body and savoury depth to the dish.
Port wine or claret
Adds acidity and fruity depth to the sauce, balancing its richness.
Castor sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the acidity of the citrus and wine in the sauce.

The step that matters

Baste frequently during roasting. Basting keeps the surface moist and carries heat over the bird, helping it cook evenly and brown without drying out the lean meat.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Cherryfits about as well

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