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Pheasant Soup

A hearty soup made from roasted pheasant, beef broth, and pheasant meatballs seasoned with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Pheasant Soup

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pheasant Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pheasant

  1. Remove the flesh from the pheasant breasts and set aside, covering to keep fresh.

  2. Carve the remaining pheasant into joints and bruise the bodies thoroughly.

  3. Stew the pheasant pieces in the beef broth for 2 to 3 hours.

  4. Strain the soup and let it cool, reserving as much liquid as possible.

Make the balls

  1. Mince the reserved pheasant breasts and pound them with the butter and bread crumbs.

  2. Season the mixture with cayenne, salt, mace, nutmeg, and the minced shallots.

  3. Moisten the mixture with the egg yolks and roll into small balls.

  4. Dust the balls with flour.

Finish and serve

  1. Skim the fat from the soup.

  2. Heat the soup in a clean pot until boiling.

  3. Add the balls and poach for 10 to 12 minutes.

  4. Ensure the soup is well-seasoned 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pheasant + beeftop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 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

Pheasants
Provide the meat and flavour that make up the body of the soup.
Beef broth
Forms the liquid base and carries the flavour of the stewed pheasant.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture to the pounded pheasant balls.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the pounded pheasant mixture into balls.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and add richness to the balls.

The step that matters

Poach the balls gently. Boiling vigorously can break apart the delicate pounded balls. Holding the soup at a gentle simmer keeps them intact while they cook through.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, beef, butter, bread, pepper, nutmeg, shallot):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, beef, butter, bread, pepper, nutmeg, shallot. 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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