Skip to main content
Main

Broiled Squabs

Broiled squabs seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper, served on buttered toast with hot stock or gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Squab and butter work together. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 48 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Broiled Squabs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Split the squabs down the back.

  2. Rub the squabs all over with butter, then season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the squabs over red coals until cooked through.

  2. Serve the squabs on buttered toast, drizzled with a little hot stock or gravy.

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. Squab + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Squab + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together35 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

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

What each ingredient does

Squabs
Form the main protein of the dish, cooked through by direct heat from the coals.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness to the squabs and helps them brown during broiling.

The step that matters

Broil the squabs over red coals until cooked through. Squabs are small birds that cook quickly, so direct heat can dry or scorch them if left too long. Watching for doneness keeps the meat juicy while ensuring it is fully cooked.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes