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Fowl, Roast

A whole fowl roasted with stuffing, seasoned with pepper and salt, served with its own drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,636 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Fowl, Roast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the bird

  1. Pluck and draw the bird several hours before cooking.

  2. If large, kill it the night before and hang it.

  3. Use the giblets to make soup.

Roast

  1. Stuff the bird with fowl stuffing, truss it, and dust with flour.

  2. Place the bird in a baking tin with good dripping.

  3. Roast in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 2¾ to 3 hours, depending on the size.

  4. Once done, pour off the fat.

  5. Add pepper, salt, and a little flour to the drippings.

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. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Turkey + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together963 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole so the meat stays moist inside the skin.
Flour
Dusted on the bird and added to the drippings to help thicken the pan gravy.
Good dripping
Fat that coats the bird and promotes browning and rich flavour during roasting.

The step that matters

Roasting the stuffed bird. A stuffed bird takes longer to cook through, and the thickest parts may stay underdone while outer meat dries out. Checking doneness in the thickest parts helps prevent both.

“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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