Skip to main content
Main

Partridges Au Gratin

Partridges au gratin with champignons, butter, sugar, salt, and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Partridges Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the partridges and set aside.

Make the mushroom sauce base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the sugar and salt.

  2. Add the champignons and cook until heated through.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the partridges in a baking dish and pour the sauce over them.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden brown.

  3. Serve hot, garnished as desired.

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. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and sauce 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

Partridges
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender and firm as it cooks in the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the dish brown in the oven.
Champignons
Add earthy flavour and a soft texture to the dish.
Sauce
Supplies moisture and body, keeping the partridges from drying out in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Baking in the oven sets the surface and browns the sauce. Pulling the dish too early leaves it pale, while overbaking can dry the partridges.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes