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Pheasant, Braised, and Rump Steak

A braised dish of pheasant stuffed with forcemeat, served with rump steak, chestnuts, and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pheasant, Braised, and Rump Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pheasant

  1. Pick, draw, and singe the pheasant, then truss it as for boiling.

  2. Make forcemeat by mixing breadcrumbs, butter, nutmeg, anchovy essence, salt, black pepper, and cayenne.

  3. Stuff the pheasant with the forcemeat and cover the breast with bacon slices, securing them with twine.

Braise

  1. Rub a saucepan with garlic and melt butter in it.

  2. Add the rump steak and surround it with chestnuts.

  3. Place the pheasant on top, breast side up, and add carrot, celery, shallots, sugar, pepper, mustard, and anchovy sauce.

  4. Cover and braise on low heat until cooked through.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + chestnuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + chestnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasant
Is the main meat, cooked slowly so it becomes tender and moist in the covered pan.
Breadcrumbs
Bind with butter and seasonings to form the forcemeat that fills the bird.
Rump steak
Lies under the pheasant and adds meaty flavour to the juices collecting in the pan.
Chestnuts
Add starchy body and a mild sweet, nutty flavour to the braising liquid.
Bacon
Covers the breast, adding fat that bastes the bird and keeps the lean meat moist.

The step that matters

Cover and braise on low heat until cooked through. Gentle, covered heat lets connective tissue soften without drying the lean pheasant, while the lid keeps steam in the pan. Too much heat toughens the meat and reduces the liquid too fast.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

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