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Gratin of Pheasant

A gratin made with minced roasted pheasant, bechamel sauce, lemon juice, bread crumbs, and clarified butter, finished under a salamander.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Gratin of Pheasant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the breast of a roasted pheasant very finely.

  2. Mix the minced pheasant with bechamel sauce and a little lemon juice.

Assemble and brown

  1. Pour the mixture into a dish.

  2. Shake a few bread crumbs over the top.

  3. Sprinkle with clarified butter and more bread crumbs.

  4. Just before serving, brown the top with a salamander.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Pheasant + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pheasant + saucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

Sauce and butter 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
Provides the main meat and flavour of the gratin.
Bechamel sauce
Binds the minced meat together and keeps it moist and creamy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and meat.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns under heat.
Clarified butter
Adds fat that helps the crumb topping brown and crisp.

The step that matters

Browning the top with a salamander. Browning should happen just before serving because prolonged high heat dries the moist bechamel and meat, while the crumbs and butter need only enough heat to turn golden and crisp.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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