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Stuffing for Fowls

A savory bread-based stuffing for fowls, made with bread crumbs, butter, herbs, onion, celery, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stuffing for Fowls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crumbs

  1. Moisten the bread crumbs with melted butter.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, thyme, parsley, and onion juice.

Cook the stuffing

  1. In a saucepan, melt butter and fry the minced onion until soft.

  2. Add soaked bread, pressing out excess water.

  3. Stir in stock, salt, pepper, thyme, and celery.

  4. Cook until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Thyme + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and structure of the stuffing.
Soaked bread
Adds moisture and a soft, tender texture to the stuffing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the stuffing.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness as it softens in the butter.
Stock
Adds moisture and savory flavor that the bread absorbs.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan. Cooking drives off excess moisture from the bread and stock. Stopping too early leaves a soggy stuffing, while cooking too long dries it out and makes it crumbly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, pepper, thyme, parsley, celery):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, pepper, thyme, parsley, celery. 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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