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Fried Pheasant

A pheasant roasted with bacon, butter, water, and cream, served with a flour-based gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried Pheasant

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the bird

  1. Dress the pheasant. Wash the pheasant. Dry the pheasant.

  2. Salt the pheasant inside and out.

  3. Place the liver back into the bird.

  4. Add a piece of butter to the bird.

  5. Tie the bacon slices across the breast.

Roast

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the pheasant in the oven with ½ pound of butter.

  3. Baste frequently.

  4. Roast until golden yellow, about 30 minutes.

  5. Baste with cream and water by spoonfuls.

  6. Cook for 1 to 1½ hours until well done.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the bacon slices before serving.

  2. Stir the flour into the drippings.

  3. Brown the mixture.

  4. Add more water if necessary.

  5. Cook until thickened.

  6. Strain the gravy.

  7. Serve with the bird.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Pheasant + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together112 recipes

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

  5. Pheasant + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together511 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Butter
Adds fat that enriches the bird and helps it brown and stay moist in the oven.
Bacon
Lays fat over the breast, basting it as it renders and keeping the lean meat moist.
Flour
Thickens the pan drippings into a gravy when browned and cooked with liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the basting liquid and gravy, and promotes browning.

The step that matters

Stir the flour into the drippings and brown the mixture. Flour must be cooked in the fat until it turns golden; browning develops flavor and removes raw starch taste, and cooking it with liquid then thickens the gravy 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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