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Partridges, Braised

Partridges braised with bacon, carrots, onions, herbs, stock, wine, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Partridges, Braised

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line a stewpan with bacon and place the partridges on top.

  2. Add diced carrots and onions around the partridges.

  3. Add the bunch of sweet herbs, salt, and pepper.

  4. Pour the stock and white wine over the whole.

Braise and serve

  1. Simmer gently for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the birds and place them on a hot dish.

  3. Skim the sauce, boil it up, and strain it.

  4. Add lemon juice to the sauce before pouring it over the birds.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Releases fat and flavour into the pan, seasoning the birds as they braise.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the braising liquid and sauce.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the braising liquid and sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the braising liquid.
Stock
Provides moisture and body for gentle braising and the resulting sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 1 hour. A gentle simmer keeps the braising liquid below a rolling boil, so the meat becomes tender without toughening or drying out. Vigorous boiling would firm the proteins and reduce the liquid too quickly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, pepper, white wine, lemon):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, pepper, white wine, lemon. 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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