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To Broil Partridge

A partridge split and broiled, seasoned with pepper, salt, butter, and served with a sauce of stock, flour, butter, ketchup, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

To Broil Partridge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and broil

  1. Split the partridge and wipe it clean, but do not wash.

  2. Broil the partridge until it is a pale brown.

  3. Sprinkle the partridge with pepper and salt.

  4. Rub a little butter over the partridge immediately after removing it from the heat.

Make the sauce

  1. Make a sauce by thickening meat stock or water with flour and butter, and flavor with salt, pepper, ketchup, and a squeeze of lemon.

Optional coating

  1. Optionally, dip the bird in clarified butter and bread crumbs before broiling.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  5. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides the main meat, which browns and cooks through under the broiler.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the meat and thickens the sauce with flour.
Flour
Thickens the meat stock or water into a sauce.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the sauce.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and tang to the sauce.

The step that matters

Broil until pale brown, not dark. Broiling is intense radiant heat, so the bird can scorch on the outside before the inside is cooked. Watching for a pale brown colour keeps the surface golden without burning the meat.

“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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