Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Roast Pheasant
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).
Roast and serve
Roast pheasant over a brisk fire, basting frequently.
Dust pheasant with flour and butter it nicely.
Serve with brown gravy poured around the bird and a tureen of bread sauce.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pheasant + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together225 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Pheasant + buttertop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together511 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Flour and butter 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
- Is the main protein that is cooked and carved for the dish.
- Flour
- Dusted over the bird, it helps form a light coating that encourages browning.
- Butter
- Brushed over the bird, it adds fat that promotes browning and a richer flavor.
The step that matters
Basting frequently while roasting. Lean game birds dry out easily. Spooning fat over the bird during roasting keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly.
“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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