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 ↓
Boast Pheasant
Ingredients
Directions
Hang the pheasant for some time before cooking to enhance flavor.
Pluck and draw the pheasant, then wipe the inside with a damp cloth.
Truss the pheasant like a partridge, bringing the head under the wing if left on.
Roast the pheasant before a brisk fire, basting it well and flouring it nicely.
Serve with brown gravy poured around the bird and a tureen of bread sauce.
For stuffing, mince the flesh of the snipes with beef, lard, truffles, pepper, and salt.
Stuff the pheasant with the mixture and cover a slice of bread with the liver and truffles, adding anchovy and butter.
Place the bread in the dripping pan while roasting.
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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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Pheasant + beeftop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together131 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,260 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).
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Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,209 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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