Name: Pheasants, a L’lTALIENNE
Ingredients: 2 pheasants; reduced wine mirepoix; 2 large sheets of buttered paper; string; 1 stout iron skewer; raviolis (for garnish); Italian sauce (for serving)

Why it works: Pheasant and sauce work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 290 recipes. Both carry decanoic acid, which smells soapy, waxy. The science ↓

Pheasants, a L’lTALIENNE

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Truss the pheasants as for boiling and place them on the spit.
Cover the breasts with reduced wine mirepoix, retaining the vegetables.
Wrap the pheasants in buttered paper, securing both ends with string.
Insert a stout iron skewer at the backs and secure with string.

Roast and serve

Roast the pheasants for 1 hour.
Place on a dish, garnish with raviolis, pour Italian sauce over, 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.

Pheasant + saucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together290 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).
Pheasant + winetop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together70 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Wine + saucetop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,936 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

Pheasants: Provide the main meat, which is cooked whole and carved for serving.
Reduced wine mirepoix: Adds aromatic flavour to the breasts while they roast under the paper.

“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.