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Roast Squab

A roasted squab seasoned with salt, pepper, fat salt pork, butter, and water, served with pan juices and watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Squab and pork work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 26 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Roast Squab

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the inside of each squab with salt.

  2. Place the squabs in a roasting pan in a row.

  3. Top each squab with a slice of fat salt pork and sprinkle with pepper.

Roast

  1. Add butter and hot water to the pan.

  2. Baste frequently, using just enough water to cover the bottom of the pan.

  3. If there is not a tablespoonful of liquid for each bird when done, add a little water.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot platter, pouring the pan juices over the squabs, and garnish with watercress.

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. Squab + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  5. Pork + watercresstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Squabs
Form the main protein that is roasted and served whole.
Fat salt pork
Bastes the birds from above as it renders, adding moisture and savory flavor.
Butter
Adds fat to the pan that browns the skin and enriches the pan juices.

The step that matters

Basting with just enough water. Too much water in the pan steams the birds instead of roasting them, softening the skin. Too little lets the pan dry and scorch, so a thin layer of liquid is kept while basting.

“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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