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Cold Salmi of Partridges

A braised partridge dish cooked with onions, mushrooms, red wine, stock, herbs, and butter, served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Cold Salmi of Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the partridges with salt and pepper.

  2. In a pan, melt butter and sauté chopped onions and mushrooms until soft.

Braise

  1. Add the partridges and brown them on all sides.

  2. Pour in red wine and stock, then add herbs.

  3. Simmer until the partridges are cooked through.

Cool and serve

  1. Remove from heat and let cool 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.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Mushroom + red winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together720 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful as it simmers.
Butter
Carries flavour and helps the onions and mushrooms soften and brown lightly.
Onions
Add sweetness and body to the base as they soften and caramelise.
Mushrooms
Add savoury, earthy depth and moisture to the stew.
Red wine
Adds acidity and deep flavour that the simmering liquid carries into the meat.
Stock
Forms the cooking liquid that gently cooks the partridges and builds the sauce.

The step that matters

Brown the partridges on all sides. Browning creates flavour through the Maillard reaction, and crowding the pan causes steaming instead, leaving the meat pale and less savoury.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, mushroom, red wine):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, mushroom, red wine. 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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