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Boiled Partridges

Boiled partridges served with creamy Bechamel sauce and parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,693 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Truss the partridges with the legs inside.

  2. Place the partridges in a saucepan.

  3. Cover with boiling water.

  4. Add the salt.

  5. Watch the water re-boil.

Simmer

  1. Reduce heat.

  2. Simmer gently for 20 minutes.

  3. Lift the birds out.

  4. Drain well.

  5. Remove the strings.

Serve

  1. Arrange on a hot dish.

  2. Pour the creamy Bechamel sauce over them.

  3. Garnish with fresh parsley.

  4. Serve.

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. Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Provide the main cooked meat, which becomes tender through gentle simmering.
Bechamel sauce
Adds creamy richness and moisture to the lean poached birds.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 20 minutes. Once the water re-boils, the heat must be reduced so it only simmers. A hard boil toughens the meat's proteins and can break the skin apart, while gentle heat keeps the partridges tender and moist.

“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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