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Pheasant with Celery

A pheasant boiled and stewed with celery, served in a brown sauce with butter and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pheasant with Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pheasant

  1. Prepare the pheasant for boiling.

  2. Stew the pheasant in a good braise until well done.

Prepare the celery

  1. Cut the celery into rounds the size of a shilling.

  2. Blanch the celery for a few minutes.

  3. Drain the celery.

  4. Stew the celery in good consommé until nearly dry.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Prepare a good brown sauce.

  2. Mix a bit of butter into the sauce.

  3. Add the celery to the sauce with a squeeze of lemon juice.

  4. Stir the sauce gently.

  5. Pour the sauce over the pheasant.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pheasant + celerytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Pheasant + saucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Long stewing in braise makes the meat tender and well cooked through.
Celery
Provides the main vegetable texture and body, softened by blanching and stewing in consommé.
Butter
Mixed into the sauce to add richness and a glossy, smooth mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the sauce and celery.

The step that matters

Stew the celery in good consommé until nearly dry. If the celery stews too long it turns mushy and loses shape, while stopping too early leaves it watery and dilutes the sauce. Reducing until nearly dry concentrates its flavour.

“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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