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Partridge Au Ciioux

Partridges stewed with cabbage, ham or bacon, stock, and seasonings, then served with cabbage and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Partridge Au Ciioux

Ingredients

Directions

Braise

  1. Fry the cabbage, ham or bacon, and partridges in a stewpan for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the consomme, pepper, and salt.

  3. Let it stew for about 1 hour (or 1.5 hours for older partridges).

  4. Remove the cabbage and partridges from the stew.

Finish the stock

  1. Chop the cabbage.

  2. Add the butter, pepper, and salt to taste.

  3. Reduce the stock.

  4. Return the partridges to the stock to heat through.

Serve

  1. Place the cabbage in the center of a serving dish.

  2. Cut the partridges in half.

  3. Arrange the partridges around the cabbage.

  4. Pour the stock around the dish.

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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + hamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together186 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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, which becomes tender as it stews slowly in the liquid.
White cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and soaks up flavour from the stewing liquid.
Ham or bacon
Adds savoury, salty fat that flavours the stock and the cabbage.
Consomme
Serves as the stewing liquid, carrying flavour and moisture through the dish.
Butter
Enriches the reduced stock, adding richness and a silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Reduce the stock. Reducing concentrates the flavour of the consomme and drippings while evaporating excess water. Stopping too early leaves the stock thin, while over-reducing makes it overly salty, since the ham or bacon and consomme already contribute salt.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper, butter. 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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