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Devilled Legs of Pheasant

Pheasant legs coated in butter, salt, pepper, mustard, anchovy paste, chilled, then broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Devilled Legs of Pheasant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the skin from the pheasant legs and score the flesh crosswise on each side of the bone.

  2. Melt the butter and mix in the salt, pepper, cayenne, mustard, and anchovy paste.

  3. Spread the mixture on the legs, ensuring it gets into the scores.

  4. Cover the legs and refrigerate overnight.

Cook and serve

  1. About 15 minutes before serving, preheat a gridiron rubbed with mutton fat over gentle heat.

  2. Broil the legs slowly, turning them every minute until cooked through.

  3. Serve on a hot dish with hot plates, pouring a little melted butter over them 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 + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  2. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pheasant + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  4. Mustard + anchovytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + anchovytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasant legs
Provide the lean meat that is cooked through over gentle heat and served as the main dish.
Butter
Carries the seasonings into the scores and adds richness and moisture when poured over before serving.
Mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that complements the rich meat and spreads through the scored flesh.
Anchovy paste
Adds savoury depth and umami to the seasoning mixture.

The step that matters

Broil slowly and turn often. Gentle, slow heat with frequent turning cooks the thick leg meat through without scorching the spiced coating on the outside. Scoring the flesh lets heat reach the bone-side meat evenly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, butter, pepper, anchovy. 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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