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First Course

A first course of assorted meats roasted or boiled with various herb sauces and served with vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and lamb match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 896 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meats

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Season the haunch of venison with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Lard the fillet of beef.

  4. Lard the neck of mutton.

  5. Bone the duck.

  6. Force the duck.

  7. Lard the turkey.

Roast and cook the meats

  1. Roast the haunch of venison until tender.

  2. Cook the fillet of beef in a moderate oven until desired doneness.

  3. Roast the neck of mutton.

  4. Boil the leg of lamb.

  5. Roast the duck.

  6. Prepare the neck of veal with béchamel sauce.

  7. Roast the neck of veal.

  8. Cook the turkey until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve the neck of mutton with French beans.

  2. Serve the leg of lamb with spinach.

  3. Serve the duck with peas.

  4. Serve the turkey with ragout.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Beef + lambtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together896 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Mutton + lambtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Lamb + turkeytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together54 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

  4. Beef + muttontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Beef + turkeytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Haunch of venison
Its lean muscle is cooked slowly until tender, the main roast of the platter.
Duck
Larding and forcing add fat and moisture to the lean bird as it roasts.
Turkey
Larding adds fat that keeps the lean meat moist and helps it brown.
Fillet of beef
Larding adds fat so the lean fillet stays juicy while it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook the fillet of beef to desired doneness. Lean beef fillet dries out quickly and can go from rare to overcooked in minutes, so the internal temperature must be watched rather than the clock.

Flavor stand-ins for the sorrel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, beef, mutton, lamb, veal, turkey, sauce):

  1. Pepperbetter flavor fit
  2. Celerybetter flavor fit
  3. Rosemarybetter flavor fit
  4. Sorrelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, beef, mutton, lamb, veal, turkey, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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