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Partridges Stewed

A stew of partridges cooked with bacon, butter, gravy, cabbage, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Partridges Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the partridges

  1. Fry the bacon with the butter in a stewpan until brown.

  2. Add the partridges, ensuring the bacon covers the breasts.

  3. Brown the partridges well.

  4. Pour in the gravy.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Boil the cabbage until tender.

  2. Chop the cabbage.

  3. Mix the chopped cabbage with salt, pepper, and a lump of butter.

Stew and serve

  1. Add the cabbage to the partridges.

  2. Stew the partridges and cabbage slowly for 1 hour, turning the partridges often.

  3. Place the bacon in the center of the dish.

  4. Lay the partridges on top of the bacon.

  5. Surround the partridges with the cabbage.

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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Butter + cabbagetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,397 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they stew slowly in liquid.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and smoky flavour as it browns in the butter, and lifts the partridge breasts.
Butter
Carries fat for browning the bacon and partridges, adding richness and colour.
Gravy
Provides the cooking liquid that moistens the birds and builds the sauce during stewing.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and mild sweetness, absorbing flavour from the stewing juices.

The step that matters

Brown the partridges well. Browning creates colour and roasted flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale birds stew into a flat, greyish sauce, so the surface needs real colour before the gravy goes in.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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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