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To Cook Partridges

Roasted partridges served with browned bread crumbs and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

To Cook Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the partridges by leaving the heads on and tucking them under the left wings.

  2. Cut off the tops of the toes but leave the legs intact.

Roast

  1. Roast the partridges in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 20 minutes, basting with butter.

  2. When the gravy begins to run, the partridges are done.

Serve

  1. Serve the partridges on a dish with nicely browned bread crumbs arranged in small heaps.

  2. Serve gravy in a separate tureen.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Provide the lean meat that is the main subject of the dish, cooked by dry roasting.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture during basting, helping the surface brown and stay juicy.
Bread crumbs
Toast and brown in the oven, giving a crisp, nutty garnish under the birds.

The step that matters

Knowing when the partridges are done. Birds this lean dry out quickly, so overcooking toughens the meat. The record's sign is the gravy starting to run, which signals the juices have cooked through while the meat is still moist.

“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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