Why it works: Pheasant and rabbit share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 55 recipes mention both. Both carry sabinene, which smells woody, terpenic. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Directions
Use a bottle jack for roasting or suspend the meat from a woolen cord before the fire.
Start with the meat at a distance from the fire, then gradually bring it closer as it heats.
Do not salt the meat until it is removed from the fire to retain the juices.
Baste the meat with the fat that collects in the pan underneath.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Pheasant + rabbittop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together55 recipes
Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).
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Turkey + pheasanttop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together33 recipes
Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).
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Turkey + rabbittop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together57 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).
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Beef + muttontop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,373 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Beef + turkeytop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together248 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beef
- Forms the bulk of the roast and carries most of the meat's juices and flavour.
- Leg of mutton
- Adds rich, savoury meat flavour and fat that bastes the roast as it cooks.
- Turkey
- Provides lean meat whose juices are kept in by gentle, gradual heating.
The step that matters
Do not salt the meat until it is removed from the fire. Salt drawn onto the surface before roasting can pull moisture out, and the record advises waiting so the juices stay in the meat.
“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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