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Pheasant, Boiled

A pheasant boiled in water, covered with buttered paper and floured cloth, served with a sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pheasant, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick, draw, and singe the pheasant, then truss it firmly.

  2. Cover the pheasant with buttered paper and wrap it in a floured cloth.

Boil

  1. Plunge it into boiling water and let it boil for a moment.

  2. Reduce heat and let it simmer gently until cooked through.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish with a small amount of sauce poured over it.

  2. Serve the remaining sauce in a tureen.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pheasant + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together225 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pheasant + saucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  5. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, 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
Provides the main meat, which cooks gently in simmering water until tender and cooked through.
Butter
Buttered paper covering adds fat that keeps the bird moist while it cooks.
Flour
A floured cloth wrapping helps protect the bird's surface during boiling.

The step that matters

Keep the water at a gentle simmer. After a brief boil, a rolling boil can toughen and break up the meat and its skin, while a gentle simmer cooks it evenly and keeps it tender and moist.

“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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