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Partridges, Broiled

Partridges split up the back, seasoned with salt and cayenne, broiled over a gentle fire, and finished with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Partridges, Broiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the heads of the partridges.

  2. Split the partridges up the back and flatten the breastbones slightly.

  3. Wipe the partridges inside and out with a damp cloth.

Season and broil

  1. Season the partridges with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

  2. Broil the partridges over a gentle fire for about 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooked, quickly rub the partridges with butter.

  2. Serve on a hot dish with brown gravy or mushroom sauce.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Provide the main lean meat, which cooks quickly and needs gentle heat to stay tender.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish, carrying flavour over the surface of the cooked birds.

The step that matters

Broil over a gentle fire. Lean game birds dry out quickly under strong heat. A gentle fire cooks the meat through while keeping it juicy, so the birds should be watched closely.

“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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