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Boiled Fowl

A boiled fowl stuffed with a mixture of liver, gizzard, heart, bread crumbs, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Summer savory and pepper work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 671 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Boiled Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Boil the liver, gizzard, heart, and lower part of the legs in ½ cup water until tender.

  2. Chop the boiled parts finely and mix with drawn butter, bread crumbs, salt, summer savory, and pepper.

  3. Stuff the fowl with the mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the fowl in sufficient water to cover it and stew gently until tender.

  2. Serve with drawn 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Summer savory + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + summer savorytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Liver + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb butter and juices to give the stuffing body and a moist, soft texture.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing and carries flavor through the dish.
Liver
Contributes concentrated savory flavor and a soft, rich texture to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Stew gently until tender. Gentle heat keeps the simmering water below a hard boil, so the connective tissue softens slowly while the meat stays moist rather than tough and stringy.

Swap the summer savory

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, butter, bread, pepper):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Summer savorythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, butter, bread, pepper. 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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