Name: To Roast Pheasants and Partridges
Ingredients: 2 pheasants or partridges; coarse sea salt; butter; bread sauce

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Roast Pheasants and Partridges

Ingredients

2 pheasants or partridges
coarse sea salt
butter
bread sauce

Directions

Prepare the birds

Pick and clean the birds.
Singe the birds.
Make a slit in the back of the neck.
Remove the craw.
Leave the head on.
Twist the feet closely to the body.
Cut off the claws.
Tuck the head under the wing.

Roast and serve

Roast the birds according to turkey or fowl roasting directions.
Serve pheasants with gravy in the dish.
Serve partridges on buttered toast with melted butter around them.
Accompany with bread sauce.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pheasant + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together239 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pheasant + saucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together290 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).
Pheasant + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together511 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Pheasants or partridges: Provide the main meat, which cooks through in the oven and is served whole.
Butter: Adds richness and flavour to the partridges when melted around them and on the toast.

“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.