Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Broiled Pheasant
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the bird
Draw the pheasant and lay it on its breast.
Cut down the backbone and remove it completely.
Cut off the feet at the knuckle and break the leg and thigh bones, turning the leg inside.
Separate the breast joint of the wing and press the bird flat.
Cook and coat
Sauté in a pan with lard or dripping until browned on both sides and half cooked.
Season with salt and pepper, then coat with egg and bread crumbs.
Broil and serve
Broil on a gridiron over moderate heat for about 15 minutes until done.
Serve with game, mushroom, or piquant sauce.
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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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Pheasant + breadtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together239 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Pheasant + peppertop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together462 recipes
Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).
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Pheasant + eggtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together218 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pheasant
- Forms the main body of the dish, providing the meat that is cooked through.
- Egg
- Binds the bread crumbs to the surface so they stay in place during broiling.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during broiling.
- Lard or dripping
- Conducts heat and adds fat for browning the bird before broiling.
The step that matters
Sauté until half cooked. Browning both sides in fat builds color and flavor, while stopping at half cooked leaves the bird to finish under the broiler. Overcooking here dries the lean meat before the final cook.
“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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