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Partridge Potted

A dish of partridges seasoned with mace, allspice, white pepper, and coarse sea salt, baked with butter and flour paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and allspice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,189 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Partridge Potted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and season the partridges with mace, allspice, white pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Rub the seasoning into every part of the birds.

Cook

  1. Place the partridges in a stewpan, breast down, as close together as possible.

  2. Cover the birds with plenty of butter.

  3. Seal the pan with a flour paste and a paper lid, then bake.

Pot and set

  1. Once cooled, transfer the birds to pots and cover them with butter.

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 + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Allspice + white peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together272 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Partridges
The main meat, which turns tender when cooked slowly in a sealed pan.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and keeps the birds moist as they cook and set.
Flour
Forms a paste that seals the pan so steam and fat stay inside.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the meat.
Allspice
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour that blends with the other seasonings.

The step that matters

Seal the pan with the flour paste and paper lid. A tight seal keeps steam and fat inside the pan, so the birds cook gently in their own juices and butter. A gap lets moisture escape and the meat dries out.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mace, allspice, butter, flour. 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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