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Broiled Birds

Broiled Birds is a dish of whole birds cooked by broiling, seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Broiled Birds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the birds down the back and soak them in a mixture of salt and water for 1 hour.

  2. Wash the birds well.

  3. Prepare a pan of melted butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt to baste the birds.

Broil and baste

  1. Place the birds in a broiler over a quick fire, turning frequently.

  2. Baste the birds with the prepared butter mixture.

  3. After cooking, place the birds in the dressing and set them in the stove for a few moments, basting well.

  4. Alternatively, place the birds in a pan, underside up, with a little water, salt, pepper, and 2 teaspoons of butter for each bird.

  5. After 20 minutes, turn the birds over, brown nicely, and baste constantly.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Birds
Provide the main meat, which is cut open so it cooks evenly and browns on the cut surface.
Salt
Seasons the birds during the soak, helping flavor penetrate the meat.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture while basting, promoting browning and a rich flavor on the surface.

The step that matters

Turning and basting while browning. Frequent turning and constant basting keep the skin from scorching while the surface browns. Fat carries heat and moisture across the surface, so neglecting it can leave the birds dry or unevenly 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.

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