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Larded Grouse

Roasted grouse larded with bacon or lard, seasoned with salt and butter, served with bread sauce and fried crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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. Lard the breast and legs of the grouse.

  2. Insert a small skewer into the legs and through the tail, then tie firmly with twine.

  3. Dredge the grouse with coarse sea salt and rub the breast with soft butter. Dredge thickly with flour.

Roast

  1. Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. Cook for 20 minutes for rare or 30 minutes for well done. If using a tin kitchen, cook for 30 to 35 minutes.

Serve

  1. When done, place on a hot dish spread with bread sauce.

  2. Sprinkle fried crumbs over the grouse and sauce. 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 ingredient, cooked whole so the meat is roasted and served as the centrepiece.
Bacon or lard
Larding adds fat to the lean breast and legs, helping keep the meat moist during roasting.
Soft butter
Rubbed over the breast, it adds fat that promotes gentle browning and a richer flavour.
Flour
Dredged thickly over the bird, it helps form a crisp, browned coating on the outside.

The step that matters

Timing the roast. Grouse is lean and dries out quickly, so the difference between rare and well done is only minutes. Checking early keeps the meat moist and tender.

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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