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Pheasants, Roasted

Roasted pheasants served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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, Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the pheasants by picking, singeing, and drawing them.

  2. Truss the pheasants by turning the head around one wing and both wings on the back, with legs straight down and feet left on.

Roast

  1. Cover the breast with paper to prevent scorching.

  2. Baste the birds with butter and flour until a white froth rises.

  3. Cook for about 30 minutes, then remove the paper to allow browning.

Serve

  1. Serve with good gravy in the dish.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Pheasant + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together511 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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
Provide the lean meat that is roasted and carved as the main dish.
Butter
Adds fat that carries heat over the skin and promotes golden browning and flavor.
Flour
Mixed with the butter basting fat, it helps form a froth that aids a golden surface.

The step that matters

Remove the paper to allow browning. The paper protects the breast from scorching early on. Browning comes from surface drying and heat, so leaving the paper on too long can keep the skin pale and soft.

“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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