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Partridges, Mayonnaise of

Partridges served with a mayonnaise made from boiled egg yolks, mustard, oil, vinegar, and aspic or stock, garnished with lettuce, eggs, and beetroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 678 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Partridges, Mayonnaise of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the partridges

  1. Roast the partridges and cut them into neat joints. Set aside for a few minutes.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Boil the eggs for 10 minutes, then place them in cold water. Once cool, remove the yolks.

  2. In a bowl, rub the yolks smooth with a wooden spoon. Add salt, pepper, and mustard.

  3. Gradually mix in the oil, tarragon vinegar, and aspic jelly or stock. You can omit the jelly or stock if desired.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the partridges on a dish and pour the mayonnaise over them to cover.

  2. Arrange hearts of cabbage lettuce around the partridges.

  3. Garnish with hard-boiled eggs cut into quarters and slices of boiled beetroot.

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. Lettuce + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  3. Tarragon + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Their fats and emulsifying proteins bind the oil and vinegar into a smooth, thick mayonnaise.
Oil
Supplies the fat that, emulsified with the yolks, gives the mayonnaise its rich body.
Mixed mustard
Its compounds help stabilise the emulsion so the oil stays suspended in the sauce.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.
Partridges
The main protein, whose cooked meat is coated and flavoured by the mayonnaise.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the oil. Adding the oil slowly lets the yolk emulsify it into tiny droplets. Pouring too fast can break the emulsion, leaving a greasy, separated sauce.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, mustard, tarragon, vinegar, lettuce, beetroot):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, mustard, tarragon, vinegar, lettuce, beetroot. 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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