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Petits Cremes of Pheasants

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Petits Cremes of Pheasants

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, bring the white stock to a boil and mix in the white roux. Let it boil steadily.

  2. Add the juice from the preserved mushrooms to the sauce, which should thicken to a consistency thicker than single cream.

  3. In a separate pot, combine the preserved mushrooms, sliced truffles, and melted stock from the cockscombs.

  4. Remove any unwanted parts from the cockscombs and add them to the mixture of mushrooms and truffles.

  5. Skim off any scum or butter from the sauce, then pour it into a clean pot and reduce it to the consistency of double cream.

  6. Stir in the double cream, then strain the mixture through a tammy cloth into another clean pot.

  7. Season with coarse sea salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper.

  8. Keep the sauce and ragout warm in a bain-marie for about 30 minutes before serving.

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. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Mushroom + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,500 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Truffle + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

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