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To Roast Txib Pintail, Ok Sea Pheasant

Directions for roasting a pintail, also called sea pheasant, on a spit with butter, cayenne and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Roast Txib Pintail, Ok Sea Pheasant

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Roast

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Dust the bird with flour and place it on a spit over a clear, hot fire.

  3. Turn the bird frequently and baste it with butter almost continuously.

  4. Roast for 25 to 30 minutes, then remove from the spit.

Rest and serve

  1. Let it rest in front of the fire for 2 to 3 minutes before serving.

  2. Score the breast and sprinkle with cayenne and coarse sea salt.

  3. Serve with a cut lemon on the side.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pheasant + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together225 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pintail duck
Provides the main meat, which roasting cooks through and turns tender and savory.
Butter
Basting adds fat that carries heat to the skin, promoting browning and keeping the meat moist.
Flour
A light dusting helps the skin brown and crisp during roasting.
Lemon
Its juice adds bright acidity that cuts through the rich, fatty meat.

The step that matters

Turning and basting almost continuously. Frequent turning exposes the bird evenly to the heat, while butter basting carries heat into the skin and keeps the meat moist. Neglecting either can leave the skin scorched in places and the meat dry.

“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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