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Pheasants, a L'xtalienne

Roasted pheasants served with reduced wine mirepoix and Italian sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,645 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Pheasants, a L'xtalienne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Truss the pheasants as for boiling.

  2. Place them on the spit.

  3. Cover the breasts with reduced wine mirepoix, retaining the vegetables.

  4. Wrap each pheasant in well-buttered paper, securing with string at each end.

  5. Insert a stout iron skewer at the backs, securing tightly with string.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the pheasants for 1 hour.

  2. Remove from the spit, place on a dish, and garnish with raviolis.

  3. Pour Italian sauce over the pheasants and serve.

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. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pheasant + saucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  4. Pheasant + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together511 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pheasant + winetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together70 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Provide the main meat, which is roasted whole and carved for serving.
Butter
Enriches the buttered paper wrapping, adding fat that keeps the birds moist as they roast.
Reduced wine mirepoix
Its reduced wine and vegetables add aroma and flavour to the breasts as they cook.

The step that matters

Wrapping the pheasants in buttered paper. The paper must be well buttered and secured tightly so the fat and steam stay around the lean breast meat, which otherwise dries out during roasting.

“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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