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Roast Partridg-e

Roast partridges seasoned with coarse sea salt, butter, flour, served with gravy and bread sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Roast Partridg-e

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Choose young partridges with dark bills and yellowish legs; let them hang for a few days for flavor.

  2. Pluck, draw, and wipe the partridge inside and out; cut off the head, leaving skin on the neck to skewer it back.

  3. Bring the legs close to the breast and skewer through the pinions and thighs.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the trussed bird before a bright fire, basting well.

  2. A few minutes before serving, dust with flour and froth it.

  3. Serve hot with gravy poured over the bird and alongside 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 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 flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Young partridges
Provide the lean meat that is the centre of the dish, with tenderness best in young birds.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, helping the skin brown and the meat stay moist during roasting.
Flour
Dusted on near the end and frothed, it helps the surface brown and crisp.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the bird at serving.
Bread sauce
Adds a soft, creamy contrast alongside the roasted bird.

The step that matters

Roast the trussed bird before a bright fire, basting well.. Lean game dries out quickly, so frequent basting keeps the meat moist while the fire browns the skin. Tying the legs close to the body helps the bird cook evenly.

“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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