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Devilled Pheasant Legs

Pheasant legs are coated in a butter, mustard, anchovy paste mixture and grilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Devilled Pheasant Legs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the skin from the pheasant legs.

  2. Score the flesh twice on each side of the bone.

  3. Melt the butter and mix in the salt, pepper, cayenne, mustard, and anchovy paste.

  4. Spread the mixture on the legs, ensuring it gets into the scores.

  5. Cover the legs and refrigerate overnight.

Cook and serve

  1. About 15 minutes before serving, preheat a grill and rub it with fat from mutton.

  2. Broil the legs slowly, turning them every minute until cooked through.

  3. Serve on a hot dish with hot plates, pouring a little melted butter over them before serving.

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 + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pheasant + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  4. Mustard + anchovytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + anchovytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasant legs
Provide the main meat, which is scored so the seasoning penetrates.
Butter
Carries the seasoning into the meat and adds richness, with melted butter poured over at serving.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour that complements the rich, gamey meat.
Anchovy paste
Adds savoury depth to the seasoning mixture.

The step that matters

Broil the legs slowly, turning every minute. Frequent turning and slow heat let the legs cook through without the seasoned surface burning before the centre is done. Scoring the flesh also helps heat reach the bone area.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, butter, pepper, anchovy):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, butter, pepper, anchovy. 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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