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Pheasant, Braised, and Rump Steak

Pheasant stuffed with bread-crumb forcemeat and braised with rump steak, chestnuts and vegetables in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pheasant, Braised, and Rump Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the pheasant by picking, drawing, singeing, and trussing it for boiling.

  2. Make forcemeat with bread crumbs, butter, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and cayenne; stuff the pheasant.

  3. Cover the breast with bacon slices and secure with twine.

Braise

  1. In a saucepan, rub the inside with garlic and melt butter.

  2. Add the rump steak and surround it with chestnuts.

  3. Place the pheasant on top, breast side up.

  4. Add carrot, celery, shallots, sugar, pepper, mustard, anchovy sauce, soy sauce, and mushroom ketchup.

  5. Pour in boiling stock or water, cover, bring to a boil, then simmer gently for 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve the beef and pheasant on separate dishes, with gravy over the pheasant and the rest 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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + chestnuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + chestnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasant
Forms the main meat, cooked gently in liquid so it becomes tender.
Rump steak
Adds beefy flavor and body to the braising liquid as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Bind the butter and seasonings into a forcemeat that holds its shape inside the bird.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and keeps the forcemeat moist.
Chestnuts
Add starchy body and a mild, sweet, nutty flavor to the dish.
Shallots
Contribute gentle sweetness and savory depth to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 3 hours. A rolling boil toughens meat proteins and can break up the steak and bird. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer lets collagen slowly soften into tender meat while the flesh stays intact.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, bread, butter, nutmeg, pepper, clove, chestnut):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, bread, butter, nutmeg, pepper, clove, chestnut. 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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