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Pheasant, Fillets of

Breaded pheasant fillets served on toast with a lemon‑pepper gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pheasant, Fillets of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pheasant

  1. Pluck, draw, and singe the pheasant.

  2. Cut off the flesh from the breast and wing to create two large fillets.

  3. Lift the smaller fillets from under the wings and any additional pieces.

Bread and fry

  1. Dip the fillets in beaten egg, then coat with seasoned bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the bread slices in hot fat until lightly browned, then drain and dry.

  3. Fry the fillets until equally browned, then serve on the toast.

Make the gravy

  1. Simmer the bones and trimmings in water with lemon rind, salt, and peppercorns for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the gravy, skim off fat, and thicken with brown thickening.

  3. Add mushroom ketchup or lemon juice if desired, heat, and serve.

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. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pheasant + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Lemon + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + ketchuptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasant
Provides the lean meat that forms the fillets and the bones used for the gravy.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the fillets during frying.
Seasoned bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the outside of the fillets.
Bread slices
Soak up juices and give the fillets a crisp base to rest on.
Brown thickening
Thickens the strained gravy so it coats the serving.

The step that matters

Fry the fillets until equally browned. Pheasant breast is very lean and dries out quickly, so frying just until golden keeps the meat moist while the coating browns evenly.

“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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