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Pheasant, Roast

A pheasant stuffed with beefsteak, coated with bacon, roasted, served with gravy, bread sauce, breadcrumbs, and watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Watercress and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 340 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pheasant, Roast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Pluck and draw the pheasant, truss it like a roast chicken, leaving the head on.

  2. Stuff the beefsteak inside the pheasant to enhance flavor and moisture.

  3. Cover the breast with thin slices of bacon or lard it with strips of fat bacon.

Roast

  1. Roast in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 40 to 50 minutes, basting frequently with hot fat.

  2. When three-quarters cooked, remove the bacon, dredge the breast lightly with flour, and baste well for a nice brown appearance.

Serve

  1. Remove the trussing strings, serve on a hot dish garnished with well-washed, dried, and seasoned watercress.

  2. Serve brown gravy, bread sauce, and fried breadcrumbs separately.

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. Watercress + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Watercress + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pheasant + watercresstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  4. Pheasant + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together225 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Bread + watercresstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 whole so the breast and legs roast together.
Beefsteak
Stuffed inside the bird to add moisture and flavor as it roasts.
Bacon
Covers the breast to baste it with fat and keep the lean meat from drying out.
Flour
Dusted on the breast late in roasting to help it brown.

The step that matters

Basting the breast late in roasting. Lean game breast dries out quickly. Removing the bacon and dusting with flour before final basting helps the surface brown evenly while the fat keeps the meat moist.

“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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