Why it works: Pheasant and truffle work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 133 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓
Mousseline of Pheasants, Princess
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mold
Prepare a mold by moistening the interior with jelly.
Make the mixtures
In a bowl, combine the pheasant and foie gras to create a mixture.
In a saucepan, take a quarter of the mixture and stir in the truffles.
Thicken both mixtures separately on ice.
Layer and chill
Fill the mold a third of the way with the white mixture and let it cool.
Layer in the black mixture, then another layer of white, repeating until the mold is full.
Cover with buttered paper and refrigerate for two hours.
Unmold and serve
Dip the mold in hot water and invert onto a serving dish.
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.
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Pheasant + truffletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together133 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pheasant breasts
- Provide the main lean meat that forms the body of the mousse.
- Foie gras
- Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the mousse.
- Black truffles
- Contribute a strong earthy aroma and flavor to one layer.
- Jelly
- Lines the mold so the mousse releases cleanly when unmolded.
The step that matters
Thicken both mixtures on ice. The mixtures must be chilled until thick enough to hold their shape; if they are too loose, the layers will blend and the mousse will not set cleanly in the mold.
“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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