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To Roast Partridges, Pheasants, Quail or Grouse

Roasted game birds seasoned with salt, pepper, and optional fat pork, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pheasant and pork work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 240 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

To Roast Partridges, Pheasants, Quail or Grouse

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.

Prepare the birds

  1. Carefully cut out all the shot from the birds.

  2. Wash the birds thoroughly but quickly using soda in the water.

  3. Rinse the birds again.

  4. Dry the birds with a clean cloth.

  5. Stuff the birds if desired.

  6. Sew the stuffed birds up.

  7. Skewer the legs and wings to the body.

  8. Lard the breast with thin slices of fat salt pork, if using.

Roast the birds

  1. Place the birds in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. Baste the birds with butter and water.

  3. Season the birds with coarse sea salt and black pepper before removing from the oven.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Make a gravy from the drippings thickened with browned flour.

  2. Boil the gravy.

  3. Serve the gravy in a boat.

Broiling option

  1. For broiling, split the birds down the back.

  2. Place the split birds inside down on a gridiron.

  3. Cover the birds with a baking tin.

  4. Broil the birds slowly at first.

  5. Serve with cream gravy.

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 + porktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together240 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges, pheasants, quail, or grouse
The birds are the main protein, cooked whole or split to become tender and juicy.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the birds brown and stay moist while basting.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Fat salt pork
Adds fat that bastes the lean breast meat, keeping it moist and flavourful.

The step that matters

Washing with soda. Washing quickly and rinsing well keeps the birds from soaking up too much liquid, which would dilute flavour and make the skin soggy when roasted.

“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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