Name: Partridges, Braised, with Truffles
Ingredients: 3 young partridges; 2 or 3 fine truffles; coarse sea salt; cayenne pepper; 1 finely minced shallot; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; ½ ounce butter; juice of 1 lemon; ½ cup brown gravy

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Partridges, Braised, with Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

Truss the partridges and braise them according to previous instructions.
Wash, wipe, and slice the truffles thinly.
In a stewpan, combine truffles, a little salt, cayenne, shallot, and parsley.
Gently fry the mixture for about 15 minutes without breaking the truffles.
Drain the truffles and add butter, lemon juice, and brown gravy.
Bring the sauce to a boil.
Drain the partridges and place them on a hot dish in a triangle shape.
Pour some sauce into the center and serve the rest in a tureen.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,523 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, pepper, parsley, butter, lemon):

Shallotthe original
Asparagusfits about as well
Carrotfits about as well
Potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, pepper, parsley, butter, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.