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Young-pheasant Roasted, with Cresses

A roasted young pheasant stuffed with a liver and bacon mixture, served with cresses and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Liver and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,065 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Young-pheasant Roasted, with Cresses

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Draw and clean the pheasants.

  2. Fry the livers from the pheasants with a few poultry livers.

  3. Pound the livers with an equal amount of fresh bacon and season.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve and fill the bodies of the pheasants.

Roast

  1. Truss the pheasants and pierce them with an iron skewer.

  2. Roast over a good fire for 20 minutes, basting with butter.

Serve

  1. Serve surrounded by cresses with gravy on the side.

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. Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pheasant + livertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Young pheasants
Main meat; lean young birds cook quickly and need basting to stay moist.
Livers
Form a soft, rich stuffing that adds savoury depth.
Fresh bacon
Adds fat to the stuffing, keeping it moist and flavourful as it cooks.
Butter
Basting fat that promotes gentle browning and a glossy, moist skin.

The step that matters

Basting with butter during roasting. Young pheasant is lean, so it can dry out quickly over a fierce fire. Regular basting with butter moistens the surface and helps it brown evenly.

“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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