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Pheasant a LA Gitana

A pheasant stewed with bacon, garlic, onions, tomatoes, sherry, and sweet red Spanish pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Pheasant a LA Gitana

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Truss the pheasant as for boiling.

Brown and stew

  1. Fry the bacon and garlic in butter until the pheasant is browned all over. Pour off excess grease.

  2. Add onions, tomatoes, and sherry.

  3. Cover and stew gently over low heat for about 45 minutes, shaking occasionally.

  4. Stir in the sweet red Spanish pepper.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pheasant
Is the main protein; gentle stewing in liquid keeps the meat moist and tender.
Streaky bacon
Renders fat that browns the pheasant and flavours the stewing liquid.
Onions
Soften during stewing and add sweetness that balances the savoury meat.
Tomatoes
Break down into the stewing liquid, adding moisture, acidity and body to the sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma while helping to deglaze and flavour the sauce.
Sweet red spanish pepper
Adds mild sweet pepper flavour and colour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the pheasant in the bacon fat. Searing the bird in fat until deeply browned builds the Maillard flavours that the stew later carries. Pale meat at this stage leads to a flat, washed-out sauce.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, butter, garlic, onion, tomato, sherry, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, butter, garlic, onion, tomato, sherry, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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