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Pheasants, a LA Dauphinoise

Pheasants braised in wine and stock, coated with breadcrumbs and Parmesan, baked with clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Pheasants, a LA Dauphinoise

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pheasants

  1. Truss the pheasants as for boiling.

  2. Braise them in a wine mirepoix until done.

  3. Remove the pheasants and let them cool partially.

Coat the pheasants

  1. Cover them with reduced Allemande sauce mixed with half the mirepoix.

  2. Allow the sauce to cool.

  3. Coat the pheasants with a mixture of bread crumbs and grated Parmesan.

  4. Place the pheasants in a buttered dish.

  5. Add the remaining mirepoix to moisten the bottom.

  6. Sprinkle with clarified butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes, basting frequently.

  2. Serve the pheasants side by side.

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

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. White wine + parmesan cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 braised first and then baked under a crust.
White wine
Flavours the mirepoix used to braise the birds, adding acidity and aroma.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating on the outside of the birds as they bake.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the crumb coating brown in the oven.
Butter
Enriches the dish with fat and helps the coating brown and crisp.

The step that matters

Basting during baking. Basting the birds repeatedly with the pan juices and butter adds moisture and fat to the surface, helping the lean pheasant meat stay juicy while the crumb coating browns.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, white wine, pepper, butter, bread, parmesan cheese):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Grapefits less well
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, white wine, pepper, butter, bread, parmesan cheese. 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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