Why it works: Summer savory and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 263 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Roast Fowl
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Draw and prepare the fowl.
Fill the body with a dressing of bread and butter, seasoned with pepper, salt, and summer savory.
Sew up the opening and truss the fowl.
Oil the fowl with butter.
Roast
Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for the first half hour, heating all sides evenly.
Baste the fowl all over every five minutes.
After the first half hour, reduce the heat to 300°F (150°C) and roast for an additional 45 minutes or more until fully cooked.
If not browned sufficiently, brush with egg yolk, sprinkle with flour, and roast a little longer until evenly browned.
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.
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Summer savory + flourtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together263 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together671 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Fowl
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through as the central protein.
- Bread
- Makes up the dressing that fills the body, adding bulk and soaking up juices.
- Butter
- Adds fat and moisture, and helps the skin brown as the fowl roasts.
- Egg yolk
- Brushed on the surface to promote even browning and a glossy finish.
The step that matters
Baste the fowl every five minutes. Regular basting spreads melted fat and juices over the skin, keeping it moist while it browns evenly. Letting the surface dry out can leave pale, tough patches.
Swap the summer savory
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, pepper, egg, flour):
- Parsleyfits about as well
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Summer savorythe original
- Capersfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, pepper, egg, flour. 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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