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Pheasant Soup

A soup made from pheasant, stock, bread, mushrooms, and seasoned with mace, cayenne, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Pheasant Soup

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 ↓

Pheasant Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms and pheasant

  1. Stew the mushrooms in butter for 10 to 15 minutes.

  2. Pound the stewed mushrooms with the flesh of the pheasants.

Make the soup

  1. Combine the stock, pounded mixture, and soaked bread in a pot.

  2. Season with mace, cayenne, and salt.

  3. Bring to a boil and strain the soup.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried bread slices.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pheasant + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Pheasant + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasants
Provide the main meat and flavour of the soup.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the other ingredients.
Bread soaked in gravy
Thickens the soup and adds body through its starch and moisture.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savoury flavour and body when stewed and pounded.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil and strain the soup. Boiling must be controlled so the pounded mixture and bread do not scorch on the bottom of the pot. Straining removes solids so the soup has a smooth texture.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, bread, mushroom, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, bread, mushroom, butter. 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.

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