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Pheasant Soup

A soup made from roasted pheasants, beef broth, and seasoned forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 17 ingredients
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Pheasant Soup

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pheasant Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pheasants

  1. Half roast a brace of well-kept pheasants, and flour them rather thickly when they are first laid to the fire.

  2. As soon as they are nearly cold, take all the flesh from the breasts, put it aside, and keep it covered from the air.

Make the soup

  1. Carve down the remainder of the birds into joints, bruise the bodies thoroughly, and stew the whole gently from two to three hours in five pints of strong beef broth.

  2. Then strain off the soup, and press as much of it as possible from the pheasants.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Let it cool; in the meantime strip the skins from the breasts, mince them small, and pound them to the finest paste, with half as much fresh butter and half of dry crumbs of bread.

  2. Season the paste well with cayenne, sufficiently with salt, and moderately with pounded mace and grated nutmeg, and add, when their flavour is liked, three or four eschalots previously boiled tender in a little of the soup, left till cold, and minced before they are put into the mortar.

  3. Moisten the mixture with the yolks of two or three eggs, roll it into small balls of equal size, and dust a little flour upon them.

Finish and serve

  1. Skim all the fat from the soup, heat it in a clean stewpan, and when it boils throw the balls in and poach them from ten to twelve minutes, but first ascertain that the soup is properly seasoned with salt and cayenne.

  2. Add a slight thickening of rice-flour and arrow-root to the soup at pleasure.

  3. Fry the forcemeat balls and drop them into the tureen when preferred.

  4. Half a dozen eschalots lightly browned in butter, and a small head of celery, may also be thrown in after the birds begin to stew, but nothing should be allowed to prevail.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

352Calories
33 gProtein
22 gFat
4 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 11 ingredients. The other 5 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Beef100g cooked250
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Vealnot in our table0
Pheasantnot in our table0
Soupnot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

  3. Beef + pheasanttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Beef + celerytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasants
Provide the main flavour and meat for the soup and forcemeat.
Beef broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the birds.
Butter (in the method)
Enriches the forcemeat paste, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Bread crumbs (in the method)
Bind the forcemeat paste and help it hold its shape.
Eggs
Bind the forcemeat mixture so the balls hold together when poached.

The step that matters

Poaching the forcemeat balls. Poach them gently in simmering soup for the full time so they set through without breaking apart or turning tough from rough boiling.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, celery, pheasant, egg, nutmeg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, celery, pheasant, egg, nutmeg. 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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