Name: Pried Fillets of Pheasants with Truffles
Ingredients: 2 young pheasants; thin slices of truffles; clarified butter

Why it works: Truffle and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Pried Fillets of Pheasants with Truffles

Ingredients

2 young pheasants
thin slices of truffles
clarified butter

Directions

Cut off the fillets from the pheasants.
In a sauté pan, fry the fillets with the truffle slices in clarified butter until nicely browned on both sides.
Drain the fillets and place them on a paper towel to absorb excess fat.
Trim the fillets to the same shape and return them to the sauté pan to cook for a minute or two.
Reduce some béchamel sauce with essence of truffles and pheasant.
Drain the fillets and truffles, arrange them on a hot dish, pour the sauce over, 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.

Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,209 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pheasant + truffletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together133 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Pheasant + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together511 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).