Skip to main content
Main

Pheasant, Boiled

A boiled pheasant stuffed with oyster forcemeat and served with oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Pheasant, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Remove gills from oysters, strain the liquor, and combine with dry ingredients and enough egg to moisten.

Cook and serve

  1. Truss the pheasant like a boiled fowl and stuff the breast with the oyster forcemeat.

  2. Wrap the pheasant in well-buttered paper and place it in boiling stock or water.

  3. Add onion, carrot, turnip, and bouquet garni to the pot once it re-boils.

  4. Simmer gently for 40 to 60 minutes, depending on size.

  5. Remove trussing strings and serve on a hot dish with some oyster sauce poured over it, and the rest in a sauceboat.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasant
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in liquid until tender.
Oysters
Add briny, savoury flavour to the forcemeat and the sauce.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb the oyster liquor and egg, giving the forcemeat body and a soft texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and rich as it cooks.
Raw egg
Binds the forcemeat so it holds together when cooked.
Oyster sauce
Provides savoury, salty flavour and moisture when poured over the carved bird.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 40 to 60 minutes, depending on size.. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil cooks the pheasant evenly and keeps the meat tender. Boiling vigorously toughens proteins and can break the forcemeat apart.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, oyster, sauce, parsley, nutmeg, egg, carrot):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, oyster, sauce, parsley, nutmeg, egg, carrot. 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipesPheasant SoupPheasant Soup25 recipesMock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipes