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Thrushes Cooked in Brandy

A dish of thrushes cooked with brandy, herbs, onions, mushrooms, truffles, and gravy, finished with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓

Thrushes Cooked in Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pluck and singe the thrushes, truss, and slightly flatten them.

Cook

  1. In a saucepan, heat lard or bacon fat and add sweet herbs, onions, mushrooms, and truffles.

  2. Cook over moderate heat until the birds begin to color.

  3. Pour in the brandy, light it, and toss until the flame burns out.

  4. Add enough rich gravy to moisten and simmer gently until the birds are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer the birds to a dish, skim off the fat, and season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice before serving.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Thrushes
Are the main protein, cooked gently in the gravy until tender.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor when flamed, and its alcohol carries flavor into the sauce.
Lard or bacon fat
Provides fat for browning the birds and carrying the herb and onion flavors.
Rich gravy
Moistens the birds and forms the sauce during the slow simmer.
Truffles
Contribute a concentrated earthy aroma to the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add savory, earthy flavor and moisture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering until tender. Simmering gently with enough gravy keeps the lean birds moist, while a hard boil would toughen the proteins and dry the meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, truffle, brandy, pepper, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, truffle, brandy, pepper, lemon. 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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