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Modern Cookery

A dish of partridges roasted or stewed with mushrooms, served in a gravy thickened with butter, arrowroot, cayenne, and catsup or wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and roast

  1. Prepare the partridges by sewing them up and trussing securely.

  2. Roast them on a vertical jack with the heads down or tie them to a spit.

  3. Roast for 30 to 40 minutes or until cooked through.

Stew

  1. Flour the partridges for stewing.

  2. Brown the partridges lightly in butter.

  3. Cover the partridges with rich brown gravy.

  4. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  5. Turn the birds.

  6. Add mushrooms.

  7. Simmer for another 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with gravy thickened with butter, arrowroot, cayenne, and catsup or wine.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  3. Mushroom + arrowroottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Mushroom + macetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,529 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Provides the main meat, which turns tender during long, gentle simmering in the gravy.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and extra moisture to the braising gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and browns the birds before they are stewed.
Arrowroot
Thickens the gravy into a glossy, smooth sauce without clouding it.
Mace
Adds a warm, delicate aroma to the gravy.

The step that matters

Brown the partridges lightly in butter. Browning sets flavour through the Maillard reaction, which gives the gravy depth. Brown the birds in batches so they colour evenly rather than steam, and stop before they darken or scorch.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, arrowroot, wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, arrowroot, wine. 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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