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Pheasants, with Puree of Celery

Pheasants served with a white celery puree and garnished with potato croquettes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Pheasants, with Puree of Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the pheasants

  1. Truss the pheasants for boiling.

  2. Braise them in the stock with the carrot, onion with cloves, and parsley.

  3. Once cooked, drain the pheasants on a napkin.

Serve

  1. Serve the pheasants topped with a white puree of celery.

  2. Garnish with a border of potato croquettes.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasants
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow braising in the stock.
Good stock
Cooks the birds gently and gives them moisture and savoury flavour.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aroma to the braising liquid.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Braise the pheasants gently. Keeping the stock at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil lets the connective tissue soften slowly, so the meat stays tender and moist instead of tough and dry.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, carrot, onion, parsley, potato):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, carrot, onion, parsley, potato. 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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