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Partridges Aux Choux

Partridges aux Choux is a French dish of partridges braised with bacon, herbs, spices, cabbage, mushrooms, and sweetbread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Partridges Aux Choux

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Lard the partridges with bacon, herbs, and spices.

  2. Season the partridges with salt and pepper.

  3. Tie bacon slices around the breasts and place the partridges in a pot with veal broth, Port wine, and bones.

  4. Stew until three-quarters cooked, then remove the birds and bacon.

Assemble the mold

  1. Line a mold with bacon and brush it with egg yolk.

  2. Add mushrooms, cabbage, and vinegar to the mold.

  3. Place the birds in the center of the mold.

  4. Top the birds with sweetbread and a little cabbage.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil water in the stew pot.

  2. Set the mold in the pot.

  3. Stew for one hour.

  4. Make a small hole in the top of the mold.

  5. Invert the mold onto a dish.

  6. Strain the cooking liquid over the birds.

  7. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Port wine + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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 becomes tender through slow, moist stewing.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that bastes the birds and keeps the lean meat moist.
Veal broth
Supplies liquid and savory body that cooks the birds and forms the sauce.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the stewing liquid.
Egg yolks
Brushed on the lining to help bind and set the mold's surface.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat and stewed vegetables.

The step that matters

Stop the first stew at three-quarters cooked. The birds are stewed again inside the mold. Cooking them fully the first time would dry out the meat and leave it stringy during the second stew.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, veal, port wine, mushroom, vinegar, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, veal, port wine, mushroom, vinegar, 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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