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Sauté of Pheasants, Hungary Way

A sautéed pheasant dish prepared in Hungarian style with butter, parsley, aromatics, and served with sour apple purée.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sauté of Pheasants, Hungary Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pheasant

  1. Divide the pheasants into pieces.

  2. Place them in a buttered sauté pan.

  3. Add parsley and aromatics. Season.

  4. Fry on moderate heat, turning until breasts and fillets are cooked.

  5. Drain and pare the breasts and fillets.

  6. Finish cooking the legs.

  7. Drain the butter from the sauté pan.

Glaze and serve

  1. Return the fillets and breasts.

  2. Pour melted glaze over the meat and roll them in it.

  3. Dish the meat in a group on a plate.

  4. Mask with good brown sauce.

  5. Serve separately with purée of sour apples seasoned with a little salt and a pinch of sugar.

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. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and sauce 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

2 young pheasants
Main protein, cooked by frying in butter to tender, browned meat.
Butter
Fat for frying, carrying flavour and helping the meat brown.
Good brown sauce
Savoury body that coats the meat and adds richness.
Purée of sour apples
Tart acidity that balances the rich meat and glaze.
Melted glaze
Adds shine and a sweet, savoury coating on the meat.

The step that matters

Frying the pheasant pieces. Breasts and fillets cook faster and dry out sooner than the legs. Removing them once cooked, then finishing the legs separately, keeps the lean meat moist and tender.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, butter, sauce, apple, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, butter, sauce, apple, sugar. 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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