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Roasted Partridges

Roasted partridges seasoned with salt and pepper, baked with butter and flour, served with a reduced gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Roasted Partridges

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 the birds

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Rinse the partridges in cold water and season them inside and out with salt and pepper.

  3. Cut the butter into pieces and place a piece inside each bird.

Roast

  1. Place the birds in a pan on their breasts and add the remaining butter on and around them.

  2. Sift 2 tablespoons of flour over the birds.

  3. Pour the cold water into the pan and bake for 30 minutes.

  4. Baste the birds with the pan juices occasionally.

  5. When the backs are browned, turn the birds over to brown the breasts last, sifting another tablespoon of flour over them.

  6. If the gravy reduces too much, add a little more water.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Partridges
Provide the main meat, which cooks through as the birds roast in the pan.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat and moisture, carrying flavour and helping the birds brown in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Sifted over the birds to help the surface brown and thicken the pan juices into gravy.

The step that matters

Turning the birds to brown the breasts. Breast meat is lean and dries out quickly, so turning the birds only once the backs have browned and basting them keeps the breasts moist while they colour.

“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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