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Pheasant Soup

A soup made from roasted pheasants simmered in beef broth, blended with butter, breadcrumbs, spices, shallots, and egg yolk balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Pheasant Soup

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pheasant Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pheasants

  1. Remove the gills from the pheasants and flour them.

  2. Take all the flesh from the breasts and set aside, covering it to keep it fresh.

  3. Carve the remaining birds into joints and bruise the bodies.

Make the soup

  1. Stew the pheasants gently in the beef broth for 2-3 hours.

  2. Strain the soup and press as much liquid as possible from the pheasants.

  3. Let the soup cool, then strip the skin from the breasts and mince it.

Make and poach the balls

  1. Pound the minced skin with the flesh butter and dry bread crumbs until smooth.

  2. Season the mixture with cayenne, salt, pounded mace, and grated nutmeg.

  3. Boil the shallots in a little soup until tender, then mince and add to the mixture.

  4. Moisten the mixture with the egg yolks and roll into small balls.

  5. Dust the balls with flour and skim the fat from the soup.

  6. Heat the soup in a clean pot until boiling, then add the balls and poach for 10-12 minutes.

  7. Ensure the soup is properly seasoned before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pheasant + beeftop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasants
Provide the meat and flavour that the soup is built on.
Egg yolks
Bind the pounded mixture so it holds together when rolled into balls.
Dry bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the balls body and a firmer texture.
Flesh butter
Adds fat and richness to the pounded mixture, keeping it moist.
Shallots
Add a mild sweetness and aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Poach the balls gently in the boiling soup. Egg yolks in the mixture set with heat, so the balls can turn firm or split if the soup boils too hard. Holding the poach to the stated 10-12 minutes keeps them tender and intact.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, beef, butter, bread, pepper, nutmeg, shallot):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, beef, butter, bread, pepper, nutmeg, shallot. 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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