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Partridge Soup

A soup made from roasted partridges, served hot with gravy and bread sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,078 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Partridge Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pluck, draw, and clean the partridges inside and out.

  2. Cut off the heads, leaving enough skin on the neck to skewer back.

  3. Bring the legs close to the breast and skewer through the pinions and thighs.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the trussed partridges before a bright fire, basting frequently.

  2. A few minutes before serving, dust with flour and froth.

  3. Serve hot with gravy poured over the bird and alongside bread sauce.

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. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Bread + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + breadtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and bread barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,383 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Form the main body of the dish, and their lean meat is cooked through by roasting.
Flour
Dusted over the bird near the end to help it froth and brown for a golden finish.

The step that matters

Basting frequently during roasting. Partridge is lean and dries out easily over direct heat. Regular basting coats the surface with fat and juices, keeping the meat moist and the skin from scorching.

“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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