Name: Roast Pheasant
Ingredients: 1 pheasant; flour; rich brown sauce or bread sauce

Why it works: Pheasant and flour work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 225 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

Roast Pheasant

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

1 pheasant
flour
rich brown sauce or bread sauce

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Roast

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Roast the pheasant, basting it frequently.
Flour the pheasant 15 minutes before serving.

Serve

Serve with a rich brown sauce or a bread sauce.

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.

Pheasant + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together225 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Pheasant + saucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together290 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).
Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,078 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasant: Is the main cooked protein, so it sets the texture and flavour of the whole dish.
Flour: Coats the bird's surface, helping it brown and form a light crust.

“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.