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Pheasant Soup

A soup made from roasted pheasants simmered in beef broth, then formed into meatballs and poached.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 pheasants

  1. Roast the pheasants until half cooked.

  2. Flour the pheasants.

  3. Remove the flesh from the breasts and set aside, covering it to keep it fresh.

  4. Cut the remaining parts of the pheasants into joints.

  5. Braise the joints thoroughly.

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

  7. Strain the soup.

  8. Press out as much liquid as possible from the pheasants.

  9. Let the soup cool.

Make the balls

  1. Mince the breast meat.

  2. Pound the minced meat with butter and bread crumbs.

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

  4. Boil the shallots in a little soup until tender.

  5. Mince the boiled shallots and add them to the mixture.

  6. Moisten the mixture with egg yolks.

  7. Roll the mixture into small balls.

  8. Dust the balls with flour.

Finish the soup

  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, which is browned, braised and stewed into the soup.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture to the minced breast mixture, keeping the balls tender.
Dry bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the minced meat hold together in shaped balls.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness so the balls hold their shape.
Beef broth
Forms the body of the soup, carrying the flavour of the stewed pheasants.

The step that matters

Poach the balls gently in the boiling soup. Egg yolks set when heated, so the balls can crack or toughen if the soup is boiling hard or the balls are handled roughly. Dusting with flour helps them keep their shape.

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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