Name: Pheasants — Continued
Ingredients: leg bones; small piece of raw ham; sliced vegetables; flour; broth; ⅓ cup white wine; trimmings of truffles; ⅓ cup sherry; sliced truffles

Why it works: White wine and sherry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 307 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Pheasants — Continued

Ingredients

Directions

Fry leg bones, raw ham, and sliced vegetables over a brisk fire.
Sprinkle in flour to thicken, then moisten with broth and white wine.
Stir the sauce until boiling, then cover and cook for 45 minutes.
Skim off fat and strain the sauce through a fine sieve into a flat stewpan.
Add truffle trimmings and reduce the sauce over a brisk fire, gradually adding sherry.
When done, keep the sauce hot.
Remove onion and herbs from the pheasant, add sliced truffles and sherry, cover, and finish cooking.
Place the pheasant on a hot dish, dividing each wing and leg in halves.
Drain fat from the stewpan, pour sauce over truffles, boil, then pour over the pheasant 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.

White wine + sherrytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together307 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Ham + truffletop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together516 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ham + sherrytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
White wine + truffletop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together425 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Truffle + sherrytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together297 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).