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A Partridge Soup

A soup made with partridge breasts, veal, ham, and vegetables, thickened with cream and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

A Partridge Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the partridge breasts in cold water for 30 minutes, then remove fat and skin.

  2. Cut meat from remaining parts and pound in a marble mortar.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine veal, ham, pounded meat, bones, white pepper, salt, bread crumbs, onion, carrots, and celery.

  2. Add enough water to cover and stew until flavors are extracted.

  3. Strain the soup through a fine sieve and remove the fat.

  4. Add the partridge breasts to the soup and stew for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with white pepper and pounded mace.

  2. Thicken the soup with cream and flour, then serve in a tureen.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 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

Veal
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the broth as it stews.
Partridge breasts
Add the main poultry flavor and meat to the finished soup.
Flour
Starch swells when heated, thickening the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety body to the soup.
Bread crumbs
Add body to the broth while it cooks.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour and cream. Flour starch only thickens fully when heated and needs simmering to lose its raw taste. Cream can split if it boils hard, so it should be stirred in gently and kept below a rolling boil.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, bread, onion, clove, carrot, celery):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, bread, onion, clove, carrot, celery. 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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