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Pheasants and Partridges

Roasted pheasants and partridges served with a mutton gravy and bread sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pheasants and Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Roast the birds

  1. Spit and lay down the birds.

  2. Dust them with flour and baste often with fresh butter.

  3. Roast them at a distance from the fire for about 30 minutes.

Make the gravy

  1. For the gravy, cook the scrag of mutton in a saucepan.

  2. Add lemon pickle, ketchup, and browning to the gravy.

  3. Strain the gravy and serve a little with the birds.

Serve

  1. Serve the remainder of the gravy in a separate dish.

  2. Serve bread sauce in another dish.

  3. Garnish with a principal feather from the pheasant.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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. Butter + muttontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

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

Pheasants or partridges
Provides the main meat, which roasts and turns tender over the fire.
Fresh butter
Basting adds fat that keeps the surface moist and encourages browning.
Flour
A light dusting helps the outer skin brown and crisp during roasting.
Scrag of mutton
Simmered to make the gravy, releasing meaty flavour and body into the liquid.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the gravy, deepening its savoury flavour.
Lemon pickle
Contributes sharp acidity and tang that balances the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Basting the birds with butter. Lean game birds dry out easily over a fire. Frequent basting adds fat to the surface, keeping the meat moist and helping the skin brown evenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, flour, butter, mutton, ketchup):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Red currantfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, flour, butter, mutton, ketchup. 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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