Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Pheafants and Partridges
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and roast
Prepare the birds by removing the innards and laying them down.
Dust the birds with flour and baste them often with fresh butter, keeping them at a distance from the fire.
Roast for about 30 minutes.
Make the gravy
Make gravy by combining mutton stock, lemon pickle, ketchup, and browning sauce in a saucepan.
Strain the gravy and pour a little into the dish with the birds.
Serve
Serve the birds with the remaining gravy in a separate bowl and bread sauce in another.
For garnish, place one of the main feathers of the pheasant in its tail.
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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Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,099 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,435 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Pheasant + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together225 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Form the main dish; their lean meat is cooked by roasting and basting.
- Flour
- Dusting helps the skin brown and form a crisp surface.
- Fresh butter
- Basting adds fat that keeps the skin moist and promotes browning.
- Mutton stock
- Forms the liquid base of the gravy, adding savoury depth.
- Lemon pickle
- Adds sharp acidity and tang to the gravy.
- Browning sauce
- Darkens the gravy and adds a deeper, roasted colour and flavour.
The step that matters
Keeping the birds away from the fire. Roasting too close to direct heat can scorch the outside before the meat cooks through; a gentler distance lets the birds cook evenly while basting keeps them moist and golden.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, flour, butter, mutton, ketchup, sauce):
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- Applefits about as well
- Red currantfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, flour, butter, mutton, ketchup, sauce. 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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