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Another Pheasant Soup

A soup made from pheasant stock, breast meat, mushrooms, and seasoned with mace, cayenne pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Another Pheasant Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil down the half-roasted pheasants to make stock.

  2. Strain the stock and reheat it.

Make the soup base

  1. Pound the pheasant breasts with the soaked bread until smooth.

  2. Stew the mushrooms in butter for 10 to 15 minutes without browning.

  3. Add the mushrooms to the mortar and pound with the other ingredients.

  4. Strain the mixture into the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Bring to a boil.

  2. Serve with fried bread slices.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pheasant + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasant stock
Forms the liquid base and carries the main savoury flavour of the soup.
Pheasant breasts
Provide the meaty body and rich flavour once pounded into the soup.
Bread soaked in gravy
Adds body and thickness, helping the pounded mixture hold together smoothly.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and a soft, tender texture to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the mushrooms and carries flavour through the dish.

The step that matters

Stew the mushrooms without browning. Gentle stewing softens the mushrooms and draws out their moisture while keeping them pale. Browning would add a roasted, bitter edge that changes the soup's delicate flavour and colour.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, bread, mushroom, butter, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, bread, mushroom, butter, 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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