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Salmi of Partridges

A stew of partridges simmered in a sauce of gravy, shallots, peppercorns, allspice, port wine, and citrus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and orange work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 727 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Salmi of Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stew

  1. Place the legs and breasts of partridges in a clean stew-pan.

  2. Heat gently over hot ashes or a small fire until saturated with sauce, without boiling.

Make the sauce

  1. In another stew-pan, pound the trimmings and add gravy, shallots, peppercorns, allspice, and port wine.

  2. Boil gently for 45 minutes.

  3. Strain the liquid into a clean sauce-pan.

  4. Season with pepper and salt.

  5. Add the juice of the orange or lemon and a thickening of butter rolled in flour.

  6. Boil the sauce gently for 10 minutes.

  7. Strain it over the meat in the first stew-pan.

Finish the stew

  1. Stew gently on the hob or side of the stove, ensuring it does not boil.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Shallot + port winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Legs and breasts of partridges
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender during the gentle stewing.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the sauce as it reduces.
Butter
Enriches the sauce, and with flour forms a thickening that gives body.
Flour
Combined with butter to thicken the sauce so it clings to the meat.
Juice of 1 seville orange or lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the stew from boiling. Boiling toughens meat proteins and can break the sauce, so the partridge stays tender and the sauce smooth when held at a gentle simmer or below.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, allspice, port wine, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, allspice, port wine, pepper, butter, 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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