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Fifty Lunches

A pheasant simmered with vegetables, broth thickened, served with rice, tomato puree, and Parmesan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fifty Lunches

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the pheasant

  1. In a pot, combine the pheasant, carrot, celery, parsley, bouquet garni, salt, and peppercorns with 2 cups of water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a gentle simmer for 1.5 hours.

  3. Strain the broth and wrap the pheasant in a hot cloth to keep warm.

Make the sauce and rice

  1. In the same pot, thicken the broth with 1 ounce of butter and 1 ounce of flour, bringing it to a boil and straining through a fine sieve.

  2. Cook the rice separately in boiling water for the last 30 minutes of the pheasant's cooking time.

  3. After cooking, return the rice to the pot, add 2 ounces of fresh butter and ½ pint of hot tomato puree, mixing with a fork.

  4. Stir in 2 ounces of grated Parmesan cheese.

Serve

  1. Place the pheasant on a hot serving dish, cover with sauce, and arrange the rice around it.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

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, becoming tender through long, gentle simmering in the broth.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce when cooked with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to both the thickened broth and the rice.
Patna rice
Provides the starchy base that absorbs sauce and holds its shape when cooked separately.
Tomato puree
Adds acidity, color, and savory depth to the rice and sauce.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and helps the rice cling together with the sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the pheasant gently simmering, not boiling. A rolling boil toughens meat proteins and can make the pheasant dry and stringy, while a gentle simmer lets connective tissue break down slowly for tender meat.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, carrot, celery, parsley, butter, flour, rice):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, carrot, celery, parsley, butter, flour, rice. 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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