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Stuffing for Fowls

A savory stuffing made with stale bread crumbs, onion, butter, egg, and boiled corn, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Stuffing for Fowls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Season stale bread crumbs with chopped onion, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add melted butter or fat from cooking liquor to moisten the mixture.

  3. Soak stale bread in 2 cups cold water.

  4. Squeeze out excess water from the bread crumbs.

Cook the onion and mix

  1. Cook chopped onion in 1 tablespoon butter until soft.

  2. Mix in the cooked onion and butter.

  3. Cook the mixture for a few minutes, then remove from heat.

  4. Stir in the beaten egg.

  5. Moisten the mixture with chicken fat.

Stuff the birds

  1. Stuff the chicken or turkey with boiled corn seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs
Form the body of the stuffing and absorb moisture from the liquids.
Egg
Binds the stuffing together as it sets with gentle heat.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps moisten the mixture.
Onion
Adds aroma and sweetness as it softens in butter.
Chicken fat
Adds moisture and savory flavor to the stuffing.
Corn
Adds sweetness and a tender texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg after removing from heat. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding it to a very hot mixture can scramble it unevenly. Stirring it in off the heat lets it bind the crumbs smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, butter, egg, chicken, corn):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, egg, chicken, corn. 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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