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Pheasants A-LA-braze

A braised pheasant served with beef, veal, bacon, and a rich gravy of sweetbread, truffles, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pheasants A-LA-braze

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the pheasant

  1. Layer beef and veal in a stewpan.

  2. Add bacon, carrot, onion with cloves, mace, black and white pepper, and sweet herbs.

  3. Place the bird on top.

  4. Cover with more beef and veal.

  5. Heat on the fire for 5-6 minutes.

  6. Pour in boiling gravy.

  7. Stew gently for 1.5 hours with veal sweetbread.

  8. Remove the pheasant.

  9. Keep it hot.

Finish the sauce

  1. Boil the gravy until reduced to about 1 pint.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Add sweetbread, truffles, morels, fowl's livers, artichoke bottoms, and asparagus tops to the gravy.

  4. Simmer for 5-6 minutes.

  5. Add catsup, red wine, browning, and butter rolled in flour.

  6. Combine everything.

  7. Return the pheasant.

  8. Add mushrooms.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Adds savory body and gelatin to the stew as it cooks slowly in the gravy.
Beef
Adds savory depth and meaty flavour to the stew through long, gentle cooking.
Butter rolled in flour
Thickens the sauce as the flour sets and the butter adds richness and gloss.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the reduced gravy.
Truffles
Adds a distinctive earthy, aromatic flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the gravy until reduced to about 1 pint. Reducing concentrates the flavour and body of the gravy. Boiling too briskly or too little can leave the sauce thin or overly salty, so watch it closely and stop at the stated volume.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, carrot, onion, clove, mace, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, carrot, onion, clove, mace, 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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