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Pheasant, Roast

A roasted pheasant served with bacon, flour, brown gravy, and bread sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pheasant and flour work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 225 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

Pheasant, Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pluck, singe, and draw the pheasants.

  2. Wipe them inside with a clean, damp cloth, then with a dry one.

  3. Truss the pheasants firmly, with or without the head. If the head is on, bring it under the wing and fasten with a skewer.

  4. Remove the crop through a slit at the back of the neck.

  5. Bring the thigh close to the wing, skewer it, and tie the legs down.

  6. Tie slices of fat bacon around the breasts.

Roast and serve

  1. Baste well for about 45 minutes.

  2. Remove the bacon.

  3. Dredge flour over the pheasants. Brown them well.

  4. Serve with good brown gravy and bread sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  2. Pheasant + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  4. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Bread + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasants
Provide the main meat, which cooks through and browns during roasting.
Slices of fat bacon
Wrap the breasts to add fat that bastes the lean meat and keeps it moist.
Flour
Dusted over the birds so they brown well and form a crisp surface.
Brown gravy
Adds savoury moisture and richness to the serving of roasted meat.
Bread sauce
Adds a mild, creamy contrast that softens the richness of the meat.

The step that matters

Remove the bacon. Bacon should be taken off near the end so the breast skin can brown; leaving it on too long keeps the surface soft and pale.

“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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