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Admirable Mock Pheasant

A stuffed fowl filled with yolk, anchovy, pepper, breadcrumbs, and egg whites, baked and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Admirable Mock Pheasant

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. In a mortar, combine the minced yolks, anchovy, long pepper, and salt.

  2. Mix in the bread crumbs and egg whites until well combined.

  3. Stuff the mixture into the fowl.

Truss and lard

  1. Tie the fowl securely at the neck and rump.

  2. Truss the fowl with the head turned like a pheasant's.

  3. Lard the fowl with small pieces of bacon, covering the breast and legs.

  4. Cover the breast with paper.

Roast and serve

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Roast the fowl until just done.

  3. Dredge the fowl with flour.

  4. Baste the fowl with fresh butter until a fine white froth forms.

  5. Serve the fowl in a dish with good gravy and garnish with watercress.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + watercresstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg yolks
Add richness and a tender, binding body to the stuffing.
Egg whites
Bind the stuffing together and help it set as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body and structure.
Bacon
Bastes the lean bird from within as it renders, adding moisture and savory flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and browning on the outside of the bird.

The step that matters

Roast the fowl until just done. A young fowl is lean and cooks quickly, so overcooking dries the meat. Pull it as soon as it is done, since the stuffing and bird continue to heat slightly after leaving the oven.

“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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