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Broiled or Roasted Plover

A whole plover roasted with oil, salt, butter, flour, pork trimmings, bread crumbs, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Broiled or Roasted Plover

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Truss the plover and place it on an oil-coated trivet in a small shallow pan.

  2. Rub the plover with coarse sea salt, brush with melted butter, and dredge with flour.

  3. Surround the plover with trimmings of fat salt pork.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 25 minutes, basting three times.

  2. Arrange on a platter, remove string and skewers, and pour around Bread Sauce.

  3. Sprinkle the bird and sauce with coarse browned bread crumbs and garnish with parsley.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

Plover
The main bird, cooked whole so its meat stays moist and tender under roasting heat.
Melted butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and promotes gentle browning on the skin.
Flour
Dusted on the surface, it helps the skin brown and crisp in the oven.
Fat salt pork trimmings
Render fat around the bird, basting it and adding savoury flavour as it cooks.
Coarse browned bread crumbs
Add a crisp, toasted topping that contrasts with the soft meat.

The step that matters

Basting during baking. Basting three times spreads melted fat and pan juices over the bird, keeping the surface moist and promoting even browning. Skipping it can leave the meat dry and pale.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pork, bread. 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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