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Pheasant Alla Napoletana

Pheasant alla Napolitana is a roasted pheasant served over macaroni with butter, gravy, cheese, and tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,448 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pheasant Alla Napoletana

Ingredients

Directions

Roast the pheasant

  1. Lard the pheasant and roast it on a spit over a brisk fire, basting frequently until well done.

  2. Carefully cut up the bird and put it back together.

Serve

  1. Serve on a bed of macaroni stewed with butter, gravy, cheese, and tomatoes.

  2. Serve with sauce napoletana 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Parmesan cheese + tomatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,490 recipes

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

  4. Pheasant + beeftop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasant
Is the main protein, roasted whole and then carved and reassembled for serving.
Lardoons
Add fat that bastes the lean bird as it roasts, keeping the meat moist.
Macaroni
Forms the starchy bed that the bird is served on, soaking up butter and gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the macaroni.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty depth and helps the macaroni turn creamy and cohesive.
Beef or veal gravy
Supplies savoury meaty flavour and moisture to the stewed macaroni.

The step that matters

Basting the pheasant until well done. Pheasant is very lean, so without frequent basting the meat can dry out before it is fully cooked. Regular basting with fat keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, butter, beef, parmesan cheese):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, butter, beef, parmesan cheese. 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.

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