Skip to main content
Soup

Creme of Pheasants a LA Reine

A creamy pheasant soup made with stock, rice, mushrooms, and double cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Creme of Pheasants a LA Reine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pheasant

  1. Place the pheasants in a soup pot with water, onion, carrot, and celery.

  2. Simmer gently for 1 hour.

  3. Remove the pheasants and let them cool.

  4. Strain the vegetables from the broth.

  5. Skim off the fat from the broth.

  6. Remove the meat from the pheasants, ensuring it's free from bones.

  7. Chop finely and pound in a mortar.

  8. Sieve the pounded meat.

Make the soup

  1. Add the white stock.

  2. Boil the rice in the stock until nearly tender, about 15 minutes.

  3. Check the rice.

  4. If soft, add the sliced champignons and the pounded pheasant meat.

  5. Stir in the fresh cream.

  6. Boil for 10 minutes.

  7. Rub the soup through a clean tammy into a china 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Carrot + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Celery + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasants
Provide the main meat and rich flavour for the soup base and garnish-free body.
Carolina rice
Thickens the soup as it cooks and softens, giving body to the broth.
Fresh double cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
Champignons
Add earthy mushroom flavour and a tender bite to the soup.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.

The step that matters

Rub the soup through a clean tammy. Pressing the soup through a fine sieve removes fibres and small solids, producing a smooth texture. Cream added before this step can split if boiled too hard, so keep the heat gentle.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, carrot, celery, rice, cream):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, carrot, celery, rice, cream. 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.

You might also like

Cream of CeleryCream of Celery37 recipesIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipes