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Partridge Soup

A soup made from partridges, beet broth, butter, bread crumbs, spices, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Partridge Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Clean the partridges.

  2. Dredge the partridges with flour.

  3. Roast the partridges until half done, basting frequently.

  4. Remove the flesh from the breasts, and set the removed flesh aside.

  5. Joint the remaining parts of the birds.

Make the broth

  1. Stew the jointed parts gently in the beet broth for 2 hours.

  2. Strain the broth and let it cool.

  3. Skim the fat from the soup.

Make the balls

  1. Press the meat from the bones.

  2. Mince the meat, including the breasts.

  3. Pound the minced meat smooth with half its bulk of butter and some dry bread crumbs.

  4. Season the mixture with salt, cayenne, mace, and nutmeg.

  5. Moisten the mixture with 2 or 3 egg yolks.

  6. Form the mixture into balls half the size of a thimble.

Finish the soup

  1. Heat the soup until boiling.

  2. Add the balls to the boiling soup.

  3. Cook the balls in the soup for about 10 minutes.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Partridges
Provide the main meat, which is cooked, pounded and shaped into delicate balls for the soup.
Butter
Enriches the pounded meat, adding richness and a softer, smoother texture to the balls.
Egg yolks
Bind the pounded meat mixture so it holds together when shaped and cooked.
Dry bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the pounded meat hold a firm, shapeable texture.
Beet broth
Forms the liquid base of the soup, carrying flavour from the stewed birds.

The step that matters

Pound the minced meat smooth with butter and bread crumbs. Thorough pounding breaks the meat into a fine, even paste so the balls are tender rather than grainy, and the butter and crumbs keep them moist enough to hold their shape in the boiling soup.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, bread, nutmeg, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, bread, nutmeg, egg. 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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