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Devilled Bones, Etc

A dish of roasted poultry or game bones seasoned and broiled, served with lemon and chutney or mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Devilled Bones, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Score the thick parts of the cold roasted poultry, game, or rabbits.

  2. Dip them into oil or liquid butter.

  3. For devilled meat bones, dip them into strong mixed mustard before grilling.

Season and cook

  1. Season with red pepper, black pepper, coarse sea salt, and curry powder if desired.

  2. Broil over a hot fire until heated through.

Serve

  1. Serve with a squeeze of lemon over chutney or piquante sauce.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Rabbit + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  4. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Oil or liquid butter
Coats the surface, helping the seasoning cling and the meat brown and stay moist.
Red pepper
Adds sharp heat that gives the devilled flavour its bite.
Black pepper
Adds mild, woody heat that complements the rich meat.
Chutney or piquante sauce
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the rich, spiced meat.

The step that matters

Broil over a hot fire until heated through. Strong, direct heat browns the spiced coating quickly, while too little heat leaves the bones warm but pale and the seasoning raw. Watching the surface keeps the spices from scorching before the meat is hot through.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, pepper, lemon, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, pepper, lemon, sauce. 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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