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Curried Pheasant or Partridges

A stew of pheasant or partridges with onions, butter, curry powder, apples, cabbage, capsicum, lemon, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and cabbage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,001 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Curried Pheasant or Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a pan, half-fry the bird joints in butter until browned with the sliced onions.

  2. In a bowl, mix butter, flour, and curry powder until smooth.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the mixture to a stew pan with stock and stir until smooth.

  2. Combine chopped apples, cabbage, minced capsicum, lemon juice, and salt in the sauce.

  3. Add the fried game to the sauce and stir frequently while simmering until tender.

Serve

  1. Remove the meat and arrange it on a dish.

  2. Boil the sauce to reduce it if necessary, then pour it hot over the game.

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. Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  2. Onion + capsicumtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together23,390 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + capsicumtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together685 recipes

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

  4. Capsicum + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Apple + capsicumtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasants or partridges
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering in the sauce.
Butter
Browns the game and onions and carries the curry flavour into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and curry mixture so the sauce becomes smooth and body-rich.
Curry powder
Gives the sauce its spiced aroma and characteristic flavour.
Apples
Add sweetness and softness that balance the sharpness of the curry.
Onions
Caramelise during browning, adding sweetness and depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and curry mixture into the stock until smooth. Flour added to hot liquid can clump; mixing it smoothly first lets the starch disperse evenly so the sauce thickens without lumps.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, onion, butter, flour, cabbage, capsicum, lemon):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, onion, butter, flour, cabbage, capsicum, lemon. 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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