Why it works: Flour and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 340 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Roast Pheasant
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Draw the pheasant, remove the craw, and cut the neck off close to the breast, leaving enough skin to cover it.
Singe the pheasant, dip the feet in scalding hot water, and remove the skin and claws.
Truss the pheasant by pushing the legs up, skewering through the pinion and top of the leg, and tying the legs together.
Skewer the pinions on the back of the bird, catching the skin of the neck.
Cover the breast with fat bacon and roast at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 40 minutes, basting thoroughly.
Just before finishing, remove the bacon, rub with butter, dust with flour, and brown quickly.
Serve on buttered toast, garnished with watercress, alongside brown gravy made from the trimmings.
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.
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Flour + watercresstop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together340 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pheasant + watercresstop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together23 recipes
Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).
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Pheasant + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together225 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Pheasant + buttertop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
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