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Partridge Soup

A soup made from partridges, ham, onions, celery, carrot, turnip, sugar, butter, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

Partridge Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the partridges

  1. Cut the partridges into pieces.

  2. Braise them in butter and ham until tender.

  3. Remove the legs, wings, and breast, and set them aside.

  4. Keep the backs and trimmings in the braise.

Make the soup

  1. Add the onions and celery.

  2. Add any cold game remains and 3 pints of stock.

  3. Simmer slowly for 1 hour.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Skim off the fat.

  6. Return the reserved meat to the pot.

  7. Bring to a boil.

  8. Skim again for clarity.

  9. Add the sugar.

  10. Season with salt and pepper.

Finish and serve

  1. Simmer the carrot and turnip in 1 pint of stock until tender.

  2. Add the cooked carrot and turnip to the partridges and 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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 through slow braising.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor during the initial braise.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the braise and the broth.
Onions
Cook down to add aromatic sweetness to the soup base.
Celery
Contributes a fresh, aromatic vegetable flavor to the base.
Stock
Forms the liquid body that extracts flavor from the braised meat and trimmings.

The step that matters

Skim before the final boil. Skimming removes fat and surface scum. Boiling again can break up leftover fat and cloud the broth, so skim thoroughly before bringing it to a boil.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, celery, carrot, turnip, sugar, butter, pepper. 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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