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Partridge and Pheasant Soup

A soup made with partridge, pheasant, ham, beef, celery, onions, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Partridge and Pheasant Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Slice the birds and cut them into pieces.

Make the soup

  1. In a pan, fry the birds, ham, beef, celery, and onions in butter until browned, being careful not to burn them.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a stewpan and add boiling water, peppercorns, and salt.

  3. Stew gently for 2 hours, then strain through a sieve.

  4. Return the strained liquid to the stewpan, adding stewed celery and fried bread.

Finish and serve

  1. When near boiling, skim the surface, pour into a tureen, and serve hot.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Pheasant + beeftop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridge and/or pheasant
Provides the main flavour and body of the soup stock.
Gravy beef
Adds savoury depth and body to the stock as it stews.
Ham
Contributes salty, savoury flavour to the broth.
Onions
Browning in butter adds sweetness and savoury aroma to the soup.

The step that matters

Frying the birds, ham, beef, celery, and onions. Browning builds deep savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction, but over-browning turns the butter and sugars bitter and burnt, spoiling the soup.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, ham, beef, onion, butter, bread):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, ham, beef, onion, butter, bread. 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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