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Boudins of Pheasant a LA Richelieu

Pheasant boudins with onion purée, served with Richelieu sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Boudins of Pheasant a LA Richelieu

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Remove all the flesh from the pheasant.

  2. Prepare forcemeat as described in recipe No. 185.

  3. Incorporate 2 tablespoons of brown purée of onions into the forcemeat.

Shape and poach

  1. Shape the mixture into oval cutlets, about 2 inches long, 1.5 inches wide, and 1 inch thick.

  2. Drop the cutlets carefully into nearly boiling salted water.

  3. Cook the cutlets until firm.

  4. Drain the boudins on a cloth until cool.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each boudin in beaten egg.

  2. Coat each boudin with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the boudins in clarified butter in a sauté pan until golden brown.

  4. Serve with the prepared Richelieu sauce.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Pheasant flesh
Forms the main body of the boudins, giving them their meaty flavour and bulk.
Brown purée of onions
Adds sweetness and savoury depth to the forcemeat.
Egg
Binds the crumb coating so it adheres and helps it brown evenly.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried in butter.
Clarified butter
Conducts heat for frying and browns the coating, adding a nutty aroma.

The step that matters

Drain the boudins on a cloth until cool. Cooling before coating lets the surface dry and firm, so the egg and crumbs stick and the coating does not slide off or turn soggy in the hot butter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, flour, egg, bread, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, flour, egg, bread, butter. 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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