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Partridge Salmi

Roasted partridges served with a Madeira wine sauce made with ham, shallot, lemon, olive oil, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Partridge Salmi

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Par-roast the partridges until cooked, then let them cool.

  2. Skin and carve the partridges, placing them in a small saucepan.

Make the sauce

  1. Add shallot, lemon peel, ham, trimmings, Madeira, olive oil, pepper, salt, cayenne, and lemon juice.

  2. Heat the mixture gently until warmed through.

Serve

  1. Serve the partridges on a hot dish, pouring the strained sauce over them.

  2. Accompany with grilled toast.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Shallot + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

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

  5. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Provide the main cooked meat, which is gently warmed in the sauce.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the sauce as it reduces.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving the sauce a smooth body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the sweet wine.
Cooked ham
Contributes savoury, salty flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture gently until warmed through. The partridges are already cooked, so gentle heat only warms them. Strong boiling can toughen the meat and make the olive oil and sauce separate or taste harsh.

“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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