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Larded Grouse

Roasted grouse larded with lard, seasoned with salt and butter, baked and served with bread sauce and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Larded Grouse

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Clean and wash the grouse.

  2. Lard the breast and legs.

  3. Insert a small skewer into the legs and through the tail; tie firmly with twine.

  4. Dredge the grouse with coarse sea salt and rub the breast with soft butter.

  5. Dredge thickly with flour.

Roast and serve

  1. Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven. Cook for 20 minutes for rare, or 30 minutes for well done.

  2. If using a tin-kitchen, cook for 30 to 35 minutes.

  3. When done, place on a hot dish spread with bread sauce 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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

Grouse
Is the main protein, cooked whole so the meat stays moist under its skin and fat.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the lean breast and legs moist and carries flavour during roasting.
Soft butter
Adds fat to the breast that helps it brown and stay tender in the oven.
Flour
Forms a dry crust on the outside that helps the skin brown and crisp.

The step that matters

Timing the roast. Game birds are lean and dry out quickly once overcooked, so the difference between rare and well done is only minutes. Checking early keeps the breast juicy.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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