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Salmi of Partridges

Stuffed partridges braised in a tomato and celery stew.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salmi of Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Truss the partridges, leaving the heads and feet on.

  2. Dip the claws in boiling water and pull off the skin.

  3. Make a stuffing with bread crumbs, herbs, pepper, salt, and a generous piece of butter.

Braise and stew

  1. Braise the partridges in a stew kettle with butter until half cooked, then remove them.

  2. In the same kettle, leave 2 tablespoons of melted butter, add tomatoes, celery, onion, sugar, curry, and salt.

  3. Boil until tender, then stir in the flour.

  4. Place the partridges breast down in the mixture.

  5. Stew for half an hour.

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. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Bind the stuffing and soak up butter and juices.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the birds brown.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity to the sauce, balancing the rich fat.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a looser sauce.
Onion
Builds aroma and a mild sweetness as it cooks down.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Braise the birds only until half cooked. Partridge is lean game meat that dries out and toughens with prolonged heat. Removing the birds early lets the final stew in the sauce finish them gently without overcooking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, butter, tomato, celery, sugar, flour):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, tomato, celery, sugar, 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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