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Boiled Pheasant

A pheasant boiled with oyster or chestnut stuffing, served with celery sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Pheasant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Truss the pheasant for boiling.

  2. Stuff it with either oyster stuffing or boiled and skinned chestnuts at the neck end.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the bird breast down in hot water.

  2. Boil gently for 30 to 45 minutes, depending on size.

  3. Serve with celery sauce poured over it.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through gentle simmering rather than high heat.
Oysters
Add briny moisture and savory flavor to the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the stuffing body and structure.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing ingredients together as they set with heat.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 30 to 45 minutes, depending on size. A gentle simmer cooks the bird through without toughening the meat, while a hard rolling boil can make the muscle fibres tight and dry. Size determines the time, so check the bird is cooked through before serving.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, oyster, lemon, parsley, pepper, bread, egg):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, oyster, lemon, parsley, pepper, bread, egg. 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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