Skip to main content
Main

Pheasant in Fillets

Pheasant fillets cooked in clarified butter, seasoned with sea salt, served with hot butter sauce and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pheasant in Fillets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the fillets from the breast of the pheasant and slice them into three thin pieces.

  2. Lay the slices in a pan with clarified butter.

  3. Sprinkle a little coarse sea salt over the fillets.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook over high heat for one minute, turning them on each side without browning.

  2. Drain the fillets from the butter and arrange them in a star shape on a plate.

  3. Pour hot butter sauce over the fillets and squeeze in the juice of half a lemon.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  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 + lemontop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together163 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

Pheasant breast fillets
Provide the lean meat that is cooked briefly to stay tender.
Clarified butter
Conducts heat evenly and adds richness without the milk solids that would burn.
Butter sauce
Adds moisture and richness to the fillets when poured over them hot.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking the fillets over high heat for one minute. The fillets are thin and lean, so a short, hot sear keeps them tender and juicy. Leaving them too long or letting them brown toughens the meat and dries it out.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, butter, sauce):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Apricotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, butter, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesPheasant SoupPheasant Soup25 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes