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Partridge Cutlets. Cotelettes De Perdreaux.

Partridge cutlets made from partridge fillets, butter, salt, egg yolks, pepper, and orange juice, grilled over red cinders.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,402 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Partridge Cutlets. Cotelettes De Perdreaux.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fillets

  1. Remove the fillets from the partridges and gently beat them with the handle of a knife.

  2. Remove the smallest bones from the wings, scrape them, and insert them into the fillets to retain their hold.

Cook and coat

  1. Melt butter in a sauté pan, add the fillets, sprinkle with fine salt, and let them stiffen.

  2. Drain the fillets and let the butter cool slightly, then mix in the egg yolks to thicken.

  3. Dip the cutlets in the mixture and grill them over red cinders until they are nicely colored.

Serve

  1. Serve the cutlets in a crown shape, drizzled with a clear or reduced fumet made from the carcasses, and garnish with large pepper and 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. Pepper + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Butter + orangetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,301 recipes

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

  5. Egg + orangetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Egg and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,696 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

Partridge fillets
Provide the meat that is shaped and grilled into the cutlets.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the fillets stiffen and brown in the pan.
Egg yolks
Thicken the butter mixture so it coats the fillets evenly.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and brightness to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Grilling the coated cutlets over red cinders. Egg yolk coating can scorch or stick if the heat is too fierce or uneven, while too little heat leaves the cutlets pale and undercooked. Steady, moderate heat sets the coating and browns the surface evenly.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, pepper):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, pepper. 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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