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To Roast Partridges

A method for roasting partridges with butter, served with bread sauce and brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

To Roast Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the birds

  1. Hang the partridges until they can be kept without becoming offensive.

  2. Pick, draw, and singe the birds, then wipe the insides with a clean cloth.

  3. Truss the partridges with the head under the wing and legs drawn close together.

Roast and serve

  1. Flour the birds and place them in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Baste the partridges generously with butter while roasting for 30 to 40 minutes.

  3. Serve with bread sauce and pour some brown gravy over them.

Make the gravy

  1. For gravy, boil the remains of a cold roasted partridge with enough water or broth to make a sauce.

  2. Season the gravy with salt, cayenne, and optional mushrooms, shallots, or herbs.

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. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Form the main body of the dish, and their meat cooks to tenderness and juiciness during roasting.
Butter
Bastes the birds, adding richness and promoting golden browning on the skin.
Bread sauce
Adds a mild, creamy contrast that complements the rich roasted meat.
Brown gravy
Adds moisture and savory depth to the meat, made from the roasted bird's remains.

The step that matters

Basting with butter while roasting. Fat spread over the surface carries heat and encourages browning, while keeping the lean game meat from drying out. Baste often enough to keep the skin moist and evenly coloured.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, sauce, pepper, mushroom):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, sauce, pepper, mushroom. 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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