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Four Entries for the Dinner

A forcemeat of pounded pheasant flesh bound with a flour and stock panada, butter, and eggs, tested by poaching a small piece.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Four Entries for the Dinner

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pheasant

  1. Remove the flesh from the legs and body of the pheasants.

  2. Pound the pheasant flesh in a mortar.

  3. Rub the pounded flesh through a wire sieve.

  4. Place the sieved flesh between two china plates.

Make the panada

  1. In a stew-pan, combine the water, white stock, and butter.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Sift the flour onto paper.

  4. Stir the flour into the boiling mixture.

  5. Cook for 2 minutes while stirring.

  6. When the mixture no longer sticks to your finger, stir in 3 egg yolks.

  7. Cook for another minute.

  8. Remove from heat.

  9. Cool the panada on ice.

Finish the forcemeat

  1. Combine the cooled panada with the pheasant flesh and ¼ of the butter in the mortar. Pound well.

  2. Add 2 yolks, 2 whole eggs, salt, and cayenne. Mix thoroughly.

  3. Roll a piece of the mixture in flour. Place it in boiling water for a few minutes to test consistency.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pheasant + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together225 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasant
Provides the lean meat that forms the body of the forcemeat.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, smoother texture and moisture in the finished forcemeat.
Flour
Thickens the panada so it binds the meat and holds moisture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the panada and add fat and emulsifying power for a smooth, bound texture.
Whole eggs
Bind the mixture so it holds together when cooked.

The step that matters

Cooling the panada before adding the meat. If the panada is still hot, it can cook the egg and partly set the meat unevenly, and it may split the butter, so cooling it on ice keeps the forcemeat smooth and well bound.

“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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