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Pheasants and Partridges

A roasted pheasant and partridges stuffed with veal and bacon, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and walnut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,039 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pheasants and Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Remove the gills from the pheasant and tie it to prevent stuffing from escaping.

  2. Mix the diced veal and minced bacon with pepper and stuff it into the pheasant.

  3. For partridges, truss them with wings over the back and legs drawn in.

Roast and brown

  1. Roast the pheasant with the head down or larded for better flavor.

  2. In a skillet, melt the butter and fry the bacon until brown.

  3. Add the partridges and cook until they are very brown, ensuring bacon is not on the breast.

  4. Pour in the gravy and add meat and vegetable trimmings.

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. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pheasant + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  4. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Veal + walnuttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean veal
Provides meaty body to the stuffing, keeping it moist and tender as it cooks.
Bacon
Renders fat that moistens the birds and browns to add savory flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the bacon and partridges and enriches the flavor.
Gravy
Forms a flavorful liquid base that moistens the birds and builds the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the partridges without bacon on the breast. Deep browning builds flavor through the Maillard reaction, but bacon resting on the breast can scorch or stick while the lean breast meat dries out if overcooked.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, veal, pepper, butter):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Almondfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, veal, pepper, 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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