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Partridges, Roast

Roasted partridges served with brown gravy, bread sauce, and fried breadcrumbs or buttered toast, garnished with watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Partridges, Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Hang the partridges for up to 2 weeks in a cool place.

  2. Pluck, singe, and draw the birds, then wipe them inside and out.

  3. Cut off the heads, leaving enough skin on the neck to skewer securely.

  4. Truss the birds by drawing the legs close to the breast and tying them with string.

  5. If heads are left on, turn them under the wing with the bill on the breast.

  6. To plump the birds, pass a needle through the back and tie the strings firmly.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the birds before a clear fire, basting liberally with butter.

  2. A few minutes before they are done, flour the birds to help them brown.

  3. Serve on fried breadcrumbs or buttered toast soaked in gravy, garnished with watercress.

  4. Serve with brown gravy and bread 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Watercress + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Watercress + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together295 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Bread + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Provide the main meat, which is cooked whole and served as the centrepiece.
Butter
Bastes the birds, adding fat and richness and helping the skin brown and stay moist.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour, keeping the lean birds moist during roasting.
Fried breadcrumbs or buttered toast
Soaks up gravy, forming a rich base that the birds are served on.

The step that matters

Flouring the birds near the end of roasting. Flour added only a few minutes before the birds finish helps form a browned crust. Added too early it can burn or turn bitter before the meat is cooked.

“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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