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To Roast a Pheasant

A pheasant roasted with butter, served with bread sauce and brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

To Roast a Pheasant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bird

  1. Pluck the feathers from the pheasant carefully.

  2. Cut a slit in the back of the neck to remove the crop, then draw the bird.

  3. Wipe the inside clean with a damp cloth or pour water through it; wipe the outside with a dry cloth.

  4. Cut off the toes and tuck the head under the wing with the bill along the breast.

  5. Skewer the legs without crossing them.

Roast and serve

  1. Dust the pheasant with flour and place it by a brisk fire.

  2. Baste constantly and generously with well-flavored butter.

  3. Serve with bread sauce and good brown gravy.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  5. Pheasant + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together511 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
Is the main meat, cooked whole so the bird roasts evenly around its bones.
Well-flavored butter
Adds richness and flavor, and its fat helps the skin brown as it is basted.
Flour (in the method)
Dusted on the bird to help form a browned, slightly crisp surface.

The step that matters

Basting constantly. Lean game birds dry out easily over a hot fire. Regular basting with butter adds moisture to the surface and helps the skin brown evenly.

“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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