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Snow-birds a L'aberdeen

Snow-Birds à l'Aberdeen is a dish of boned snow-birds stuffed with liver force, served in aspic with tomato aspic, truffles, cress, and savory cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Liver and truffle work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 395 recipes. Both carry 1-nonanal, which smells fatty, waxy. The science ↓

Snow-birds a L'aberdeen

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Take an ornamental border mold and fill the points with tomato aspic.

  2. Ornament the lower parts with truffles.

Set and serve

  1. Fill the mold with the birds and aspic, then turn out when set.

  2. Place on a silver dish and garnish around with cress and chopped aspic.

  3. Fill the center with small molds of savory cream.

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. Liver + truffletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  2. Tomato + truffletop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together242 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  3. Liver + tomatotop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  4. Truffle + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Liver + creamtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together304 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Aspic
Sets around the birds, holding the shape when the mold is turned out.
Snow-birds
Form the main filling, presented whole inside the set aspic.
Savory cream
Provides a rich, smooth contrast to the firm aspic and meat.

The step that matters

Turning out the mold when set. The aspic must be fully firm before turning out, or the shape slumps and the decoration shifts. Gelatin sets as it cools, so the mold needs enough time to chill through before it is inverted onto the dish.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, truffle, cream):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Onionfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, truffle, cream. 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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