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Partridge Soup

A hearty soup made with partridges, ham, celery, onions, mutton shanks, and stock, finished with macaroni and Parmesan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Partridge Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the partridges

  1. Skin the partridges and cut them into pieces.

  2. Slice the ham, celery, and onions.

  3. Fry all ingredients in butter until browned, being careful not to burn them.

Make the soup

  1. Transfer to a stew pan with boiling water, peppercorns, mutton shanks, and salt.

  2. Stew gently for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the soup through a sieve.

  4. Return the strained soup to the stew pan with stewed celery and fried bread.

  5. When the soup is near boiling, skim the surface.

  6. Pour the soup into a tureen.

  7. Serve the soup hot.

Make the macaroni

  1. Boil macaroni in stock until tender.

  2. Remove half of the cooked macaroni.

  3. Add more stock to the remaining macaroni.

  4. Boil the macaroni until it can be pulped through a fine sieve.

  5. Combine the pulped macaroni, the two liquors, hot cream, the reserved macaroni, and grated Parmesan.

  6. Heat the mixture gently without boiling.

  7. Serve with crusts of French roll.

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

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

  2. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Provide the main meat and flavour of the soup.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty depth and helps the macaroni mixture taste rich.
Hot cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the macaroni mixture.
Macaroni
Thickens when pulped and gives the second course body and texture.

The step that matters

Heat the macaroni mixture gently without boiling. Cream and cheese can separate or curdle when overheated, so gentle heat keeps the mixture smooth and creamy.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, onion, butter, mutton, bread, cream, parmesan cheese):

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Pepperfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, butter, mutton, bread, cream, parmesan cheese. 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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