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Stuffing for Baked or Roasted Fowls

A bread-based stuffing with butter, onion, parsley, celery, thyme, nutmeg, sweet cream, eggs, and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stuffing for Baked or Roasted Fowls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Soak the bread in cold water for 5 minutes, then squeeze it dry in a clean napkin.

Make the stuffing

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the minced onion and simmer.

  3. Add the soaked bread, parsley, celery, thyme, nutmeg, salt, and pepper to the saucepan.

  4. Heat thoroughly, then remove from the stove.

  5. Stir in the sweet cream, beaten eggs, and oysters until well combined.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the body of the stuffing and absorbs the liquid and fat, giving it structure.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing together as they set, holding the mixture in shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and keeping the bread moist.
Oysters
Contribute their briny flavour and tender texture to the stuffing.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the stuffing and mellowing its flavour.

The step that matters

Heat thoroughly, then remove from the stove. Heating the bread mixture gently lets the flavours blend, while the eggs and oysters are added off the heat so the eggs stay tender rather than scrambling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, parsley, celery, thyme, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, parsley, celery, thyme, nutmeg, pepper. 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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