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Pheasant with Celery

A stew of pheasant and celery cooked in consommé and brown sauce with butter and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pheasant with Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the pheasant and celery

  1. Stew the pheasant in any braise until well done.

  2. Blanch the celery rounds for a few minutes, then drain on a sieve.

  3. Stew the celery in good consommé until nearly dry.

Finish and serve

  1. Prepare a good brown sauce and mix in the butter.

  2. Add the celery to the brown sauce with a squeeze of lemon juice and stir gently.

  3. Pour the sauce over the pheasant and serve hot.

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. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pheasant + celerytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

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

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

  5. Pheasant + saucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Pheasant
Is the main protein, becoming tender through long, slow stewing in liquid.
Celery
Provides the vegetable body of the stew, softened by blanching and simmering in consommé.
Butter
Enriches the brown sauce, adding richness and a smooth, glossy texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich brown sauce and balances its flavour.

The step that matters

Stew the celery in good consommé until nearly dry. Cooking until nearly dry concentrates the celery's flavour and lets it absorb the consommé, while stopping short of dryness keeps it moist enough to combine with the sauce.

“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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