Why it works: Pheasant and pork work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 240 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
To Roast Partridges, Pheasants, Quails or Grouse
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Carefully remove all shot from the birds and wash them quickly with soda in water.
Rinse again and dry with a clean cloth.
Stuff the birds and sew them up, or leave them unstuffed.
Skewer the legs and wings to the body.
Lard the breast with thin slices of fat salt pork, if using.
Place the birds in a 400°F (200°C) oven and baste with butter and water.
Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper before cooking.
Make a gravy from the drippings thickened with browned flour, boil, and serve in a boat.
For broiling, split the birds down the back, place them inside down on a gridiron, cover with a baking tin, and broil slowly at first.
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.
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Pheasant + porktop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together240 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Pheasant + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together225 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,121 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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
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