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Pheasant, Salmis of

Roasted pheasant served with a sauce of brown sauce, Madeira wine, goose liver, truffle, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,973 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pheasant, Salmis of

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Roast the pheasant

  1. Pluck, draw, and truss the pheasant for roasting.

  2. Baste the pheasant well with hot butter.

  3. Roast the pheasant in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes, basting frequently.

  4. Strain the basting butter into a stewpan.

Make the salmis

  1. Divide the bird into neat joints, setting aside the breast, wings, and legs.

  2. Cut the remainder of the bird into small pieces.

  3. Reheat the butter in the stewpan.

  4. Add the small pieces of pheasant, lemon rind, shallots, bay leaf, and thyme to the stewpan.

  5. Fry the mixture well.

  6. Drain off the butter.

  7. Return the pieces of pheasant to the stewpan.

  8. Heat the brown sauce in a separate stewpan.

  9. Add the Madeira wine to the brown sauce.

  10. Season the sauce to taste.

  11. Simmer the sauce for 10 minutes before adding the pheasant.

Assemble and serve

  1. Meanwhile, reheat the butter.

  2. Fry the slices of goose liver, draining them well.

  3. Arrange the pheasant in a casserole or stewpan, interspersed with slices of liver and truffle.

  4. Pour the sauce over the pheasant.

  5. Garnish with glazed croutons of fried bread.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pheasant + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together89 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  5. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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, providing the meat that is roasted, then jointed and braised in the sauce.
Brown sauce
Forms the rich liquid base that coats and flavours the pheasant pieces.
Goose liver
Adds richness and a soft, buttery texture when fried and arranged with the pheasant.
Butter
Carries fat for basting and frying, adding richness and browning to the pheasant and shallots.
Madeira or marsala wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the sauce as it simmers.
Shallots
Add a mild sweet aromatic base when fried with the pheasant pieces.

The step that matters

Fry the mixture well. Browning the pheasant pieces and shallots in butter builds caramelised, savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction, which later carries into the sauce. Pale frying gives a flatter taste.

“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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