Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Modern Cookery
Ingredients
Directions
Coat the fowl
Remove the fowl from the fire.
Pour lukewarm butter over the fowl evenly.
Thickly sprinkle fine bread crumbs over the fowl.
Sprinkle more butter over the crumbs and dip the fowl into additional crumbs.
Cook and serve
Return the fowl to the fire and cook until it is a clear light brown all over.
Carefully remove the fowl from the spit and serve with lemon sauce and thickened gravy mixed with minced parsley.
Optionally, mix shredded savoury herbs, spices, and lemon zest with the crumbs.
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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Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,037 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together28,563 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,588 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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
- Fowl
- Forms the main body that is coated, cooked and served.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the crumbs brown during cooking.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a crisp coating that turns golden brown as it cooks.
The step that matters
Cooking until clear light brown all over. Butter and crumbs brown through the heat, so the colour shows the coating is setting. Too little time leaves the crumbs pale and soft, while too much time can scorch them before the fowl is cooked through.
“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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