Name: Pheasant Pie
Ingredients: 1 well-hung pheasant; 1 pound forcemeat (veal and ham, mushroom, or truffled); seasoning; gravy; butter for frying; slices of fat bacon

Why it works: Pheasant and veal work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 132 recipes. Both carry geraniol, which smells rose, geranium. The science ↓

Pheasant Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Joint the pheasant and fry the joints in a little hot butter until browned.
In a dish, layer the fried joints with forcemeat in between.
Alternatively, bone the bird, fill it with forcemeat, and cut into four pieces.
Top with slices of fat bacon.

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.

Pheasant + vealtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together132 recipes

Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).
Pheasant + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together511 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,381 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).