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To Roast Partridges

Roasted partridges served with clear gravy and Seville orange juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Prepare

  1. Truss and skewer the partridges.

  2. Cover the breasts with slices of lemon and lard.

  3. Wrap them in paper and secure with packthread.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast for 45 minutes over a good fire.

  2. Remove the paper and serve with clear gravy seasoned with 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + orangetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,821 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Partridges
The lean game meat that is cooked whole and carved for serving.
Lard
Fat that covers the breasts, keeping the lean meat moist and helping it brown.
Slices of lemon
Add a bright, aromatic acidity that sits against the richness of the bird.
Seville orange juice
Adds sharp acidity and citrus aroma to the gravy.
Gravy
Supplies moisture and a savoury sauce to balance the lean meat.

The step that matters

Roast for 45 minutes over a good fire. Partridge breast is very lean and dries out quickly when overcooked. The lard covering helps, but the time and heat must be watched so the meat stays juicy.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Blueberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, lemon. 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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