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Partridge Solp

A hearty soup of partridges, fowl, veal, ham, vegetables, and eggs, simmered in beef stock and seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Partridge Solp

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut the partridges, fowl, veal, and ham into pieces.

  2. Place them in a stewpot with ½ pint of water, cover, and steam until three-quarters cooked.

  3. Add 3 quarts of beef stock and simmer until the ingredients are tender.

  4. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve.

  5. Let the strained liquid cool.

  6. Remove the fat from the cooled liquid.

Clear the soup

  1. Add a little liquid color, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Whisk in 2 eggs and their shells.

  3. Clear the mixture over a gentle heat.

  4. Strain it through a tamis cloth.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the cabbage into small slices.

  2. Scald the cabbage slices.

  3. Add the cabbage to the soup.

  4. Boil gently until the cabbage is tender.

  5. Serve one of the birds in the soup.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Their whites bind to impurities and rise with them, clearing the soup as they coagulate.
Partridges
Provide the main meat flavour and body for the stock.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the soup's flavour.
White cabbage
Adds bulk and a mild, tender vegetable texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Clear the mixture over a gentle heat. Egg whites must be heated slowly while stirred so they gather impurities into a raft. Boiling vigorously breaks the raft apart and leaves the soup cloudy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, veal, ham, celery, onion, turnip, carrot):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, veal, ham, celery, onion, turnip, carrot. 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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