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Pheasant, Curried

A pheasant cooked with curry paste, stock, herbs, and rice flour, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Pheasant, Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Joint the pheasant and trim the pieces.

  2. Boil the odds and ends with the stock.

Brown and combine

  1. Fry the pheasant joints with the onion and herbs until browned.

  2. Combine the browned joints with the stock mixture, excluding the rice flour.

Strain and thicken

  1. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve, placing the meat on a dish.

  2. Return the liquid to the pan and skim off fat.

  3. Add the rice flour and boil briefly.

Season and serve

  1. Season with salt to taste and pour over the pheasant.

  2. Serve with a border of rice.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Marjoram + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  4. Marjoram + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pheasant
Provides the main meat, which is browned for flavor and then simmered into the dish.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the flavors of the boiled and browned ingredients.
Rice flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when heated with the liquid.
Curry paste
Adds the spiced aroma and flavor that defines the sauce.
Onion
Softens and browns with the herbs, adding sweetness and savory depth to the base.

The step that matters

Adding and boiling the rice flour. Rice flour thickens only when its starch is hot enough to swell, so the mixture must reach a boil. Stir it in thoroughly first to prevent lumps, then boil briefly as directed.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, rice, flour, thyme, marjoram, basil, carrot):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, rice, flour, thyme, marjoram, basil, carrot. 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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