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Pheasant Soup

A soup made from roasted pheasant, beef broth, butter, breadcrumbs, spices, shallots, and egg yolks, finished with pheasant meatballs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Pheasant Soup

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pheasant Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pheasant

  1. Remove the flesh from the breasts of the roasted pheasants and set it aside, covering it to keep it fresh.

  2. Carve the remaining parts of the birds into joints and bruise the bodies thoroughly.

  3. Stew the pheasants gently in the beef broth for 2 to 3 hours.

  4. Strain the soup, press as much liquid as possible from the pheasants, and let the soup cool.

Make the forcemeat balls

  1. Strip the skin from the breasts and mince the flesh.

  2. Pound the minced pheasant with the butter and bread crumbs until smooth.

  3. Season the mixture with cayenne, salt, mace, and nutmeg.

  4. Add the minced shallots.

  5. Moisten the mixture with the egg yolks.

  6. Roll the mixture into small balls and dust them with flour.

Finish and serve

  1. Skim the fat from the soup.

  2. Heat the soup in a clean pot until boiling.

  3. Poach the balls in the boiling soup for 10 to 12 minutes, ensuring the soup is well-seasoned.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Pheasant + beeftop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 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 flavor for both the broth and the forcemeat balls.
Beef broth
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavor of the stewed birds.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth texture to the pounded forcemeat.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the pounded pheasant into a workable mixture.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat mixture and add richness so the balls hold together.
Shallots
Add a mild aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the forcemeat.

The step that matters

Poach the balls gently in the boiling soup. Egg yolks in the forcemeat set with heat, so the balls can firm up or break apart if the soup is handled roughly; a steady simmer keeps them intact and tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, beef, butter, bread, pepper, nutmeg, shallot):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, beef, butter, bread, pepper, nutmeg, shallot. 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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