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Snipe and Woodcock

Roasted snipe and woodcock served on toasted bread with watercress and plain butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,037 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Snipe and Woodcock

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Cover the birds with layers of bacon and tie them with string.

Roast

  1. Roast the birds before the fire for 20 minutes, basting constantly with butter.

  2. Place toasted bread under the birds to catch the drippings.

Serve

  1. Serve the birds on the toast with watercress around them and plain butter sauce in a separate dish.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,308 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

Snipe
Main protein; the birds are the dish itself, so they are the centre of the recipe.
Butter
Basting fat that carries heat to the birds and promotes browning and a rich flavour.
Bacon (in the method)
Wrapped layers that protect the lean birds from drying out while they roast.
Toasted bread (in the method)
Catches the drippings, soaking up juices and fat for a flavourful base under the birds.

The step that matters

Basting the birds with butter during roasting. Lean game birds dry out quickly over a fire. Frequent basting with butter keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, lemon, butter, flour, mushroom, parsley, garlic):

  1. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  2. Spinachbetter flavor fit
  3. Chivebetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, lemon, butter, flour, mushroom, parsley, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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