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Pheasants’ Legs Devilled

Pheasant legs prepared with butter, mustard, salt, pepper, anchovy sauce, then grilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pheasants’ Legs Devilled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the skin from the pheasant legs and make deep cuts on each side of the bone.

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

  3. Spread the mixture on the legs and in the cuts, then refrigerate until needed.

Grill and serve

  1. Grill the legs over a gentle fire, turning frequently until cooked.

  2. Serve on a hot dish with melted butter poured over them.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Butter
Carries the mustard and seasonings and adds richness and moisture to the meat.
Made mustard
Adds sharp flavour and emulsifies with the butter to help the coating cling to the meat.
Anchovy sauce
Adds savoury depth, rounding out the seasoning of the coating.

The step that matters

Grill over a gentle fire, turning often. Pheasant legs are lean and dry out quickly over high heat. A gentle fire and frequent turning cook the meat through while letting the coating warm and set without burning.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

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