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To Roast Partridges

Roasted partridges served with lemon, bacon, clear juice, allspice, and Seville orange juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

To Roast Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cover the breasts of the partridges with slices of lemon and bacon.

  3. Tightly cover with paper.

Roast

  1. Roast until cooked through.

  2. Remove the paper and froth the partridges.

Serve

  1. Serve with clear juice, allspice, and a little Seville orange juice.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Allspice + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
The main protein, which firms as it cooks and needs gentle covered heat to stay moist.
Bacon
Its fat bastes the lean breasts, adding moisture and savoury flavour as it renders.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity and aroma that cut through the richness of the bird and bacon.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the roasted meat and its serving juices.
Seville orange juice
Adds sharp acidity and citrus aroma to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Roast until cooked through. Partridge breast is lean and dries out quickly once it passes doneness. Covering the birds with paper and bacon slows moisture loss, but the meat still needs checking so it is cooked through without overcooking.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, orange):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, orange. 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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