Name: Boiled Pheasant
Ingredients: 1 pheasant; oyster stuffing or chestnut stuffing; coarse sea salt; water; celery sauce

Why it works: Oyster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,233 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Pheasant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Truss the pheasant for boiling.
Stuff it with oyster stuffing or boiled and skinned chestnuts at the neck end.

Boil and serve

Place the bird breast down in hot water.
Boil gently for 30 to 45 minutes, depending on size.
Serve with celery sauce poured over and around.

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.

Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,233 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pheasant + celerytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together124 recipes

Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).
Pheasant + saucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together290 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).
Oyster + celerytop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,131 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pheasant + oystertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together56 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).