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Beignets of Pheasant a LA Dominique

A fried pastry ball filled with pheasant, béchamel, and seasonings, topped with ham or tongue and truffle or parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Beignets of Pheasant a LA Dominique

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pound the pheasant until smooth and mix with béchamel sauce, butter, salt, and cayenne pepper until smooth.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Form the mixture into walnut-sized balls, dusting with flour to prevent sticking.

Fill and coat

  1. Make a small well in each ball and fill with a piece of glaze and a piece of mushroom.

  2. Roll the balls again and cover with profiterole paste using a piping bag.

Fry and serve

  1. Dust with flour and fry in hot fat for 8–10 minutes, turning constantly until golden.

  2. Drain on a pastry rack and lightly brush with raw egg white.

  3. Sprinkle with chopped ham or tongue and truffle or parsley.

  4. Serve piled on a hot dish.

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. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Ham + truffletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together516 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Pheasant + truffletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together133 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

Butter and flour 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
Forms the main body of the balls, giving them their savoury flavour and bulk.
Béchamel sauce
Adds moisture and binds the pounded meat so the mixture holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the texture and carrying flavour.

The step that matters

Frying in hot, clean fat. The fat must be hot and clean. Hot fat sets the flour-dusted, choux-covered outside quickly into a crisp golden crust, while cooler or dirty fat lets the coating absorb grease and turn soggy or dark before the centre is hot.

“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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