Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Roast Pheasants
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the bird
Hang the pheasant until blood drops from the beak, then pluck and draw it.
Truss the pheasant like a fowl for roasting, leaving the head on.
Insert a small piece of rump steak inside the bird to keep it moist.
Leave the feet on but cut off the toes.
Tie a slice of fat bacon on the breast.
Lard the breast.
Roast and serve
Roast in front of a clear fire for 30 minutes if young or 40 minutes if old.
Baste with butter during roasting.
Just before finishing, remove the bacon.
Dredge lightly with flour.
Baste with butter to create a froth.
Serve with watercress, fried crumbs, brown gravy, and bread sauce.
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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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + watercresstop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together340 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pheasant + watercresstop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together23 recipes
Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).
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Pheasant + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together225 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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
What each ingredient does
- Pheasant
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole so its meat stays moist during roasting.
- Rump steak
- Placed inside the bird, it adds moisture and savoury flavour to the lean meat as it roasts.
- Fat bacon
- Tied over the breast, its fat melts and bastes the meat, keeping it moist and aiding browning.
- Butter
- Used for basting, its fat promotes browning and a golden, crisp skin.
- Flour
- Dusted lightly over the bird, it helps form a browned, crisp surface.
The step that matters
Basting with butter to create a froth. Butter contains milk solids and water that brown and foam in the hot fat, so basting late and steadily gives a golden, frothy surface rather than a pale or burnt one.
“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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