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Pheasant Cutlets

Pheasant cutlets are pan‑fried pieces of pheasant served with a gravy made from the bird's bones and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Pheasant Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pheasants

  1. Pluck, draw, and singe the pheasants.

  2. Cut the pheasants into neat joints.

  3. Carefully remove the bones.

  4. Shape the joints into cutlets.

  5. Flatten the cutlets with a rolling pin.

  6. Season the cutlets highly.

  7. Cover the cutlets with egg and bread crumbs.

Make the gravy

  1. Combine the bones and trimmings with the carrot, turnip, onion, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, pepper, salt, and enough water to cover in a saucepan.

  2. Stew slowly until the flavors are extracted.

  3. Thicken the gravy.

  4. Strain the gravy.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cutlets in a sauté pan with butter until browned all over, about 10 to 12 minutes.

  2. Serve the cutlets on a hot dish with a small bone stuck into each.

  3. Pour the hot gravy around them.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasants
Provide the lean meat that forms the cutlets and the bones for the gravy.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the cutlets during frying.
Finely grated bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when the cutlets are fried.
Butter
Conducts heat in the pan and promotes browning and rich flavor on the cutlets.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the gravy as it stews.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets until browned all over. The coating and meat need enough heat and time to brown without drying out. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which develops flavor and color on the surface.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme, pepper, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme, pepper, butter. 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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