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 ↓
Another Pheasant Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Boil down the half-roasted pheasants as directed in the previous recipe.
Strain the soup and reheat it.
Pound the pheasant breasts with the soaked bread until smooth.
Stew the sliced mushrooms in butter for 10 to 15 minutes without browning.
Add the mushrooms to the mortar and pound with the pheasant mixture.
Pass the soup through a strainer after adding the pounded mixture.
Bring the soup to a boil and serve with fried bread sippets.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,536 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Pheasant + mushroomtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together145 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
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Pheasant + breadtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together239 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, bread, mushroom, butter):
- Thymefits better
- Garlicfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, bread, mushroom, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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