Why it works: Pheasant and butter work together. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 511 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Roast Pheasants with Cress
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Hang the pheasants by the beak in a cold, dry, airy place for about four days to develop flavor.
Pluck the pheasant, remove the crop and entrails without breaking the skin, and truss it for roasting.
Do not wash the bird; tie slitted bacon over the breast.
Roast the pheasant in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 to 20 minutes, basting frequently.
Transfer the cooked pheasant to trimmed, buttered toast or croutons for serving.
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.
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Pheasant + buttertop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together511 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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