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To Pot Grouse or Partridges

A dish of grouse or partridges potted with butter, port wine, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Pot Grouse or Partridges

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the birds

  1. Prepare the birds by removing the head, washing, and drying them.

  2. Season the inside and outside of the birds with salt, pepper, mace, and nutmeg.

  3. Place about 1 ounce of butter inside each bird and pack them closely in a baking dish.

  4. Pour ⅓ to ⅔ cup of port wine over the birds.

Bake and pot

  1. Cover with butter and seal the dish with a coarse paste.

  2. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 1 hour.

  3. Once cooled, remove the crust and butter, and dry the birds from the gravy.

  4. Place one bird in each small potting pot and cover with clarified butter.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Grouse or partridges
Forms the main meat that becomes tender during the long, gentle baking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and seals the birds as they cook and set.
Port wine
Adds moisture and a sweet, fruity depth to the cooking juices.
Flour
Helps make the coarse paste that seals the dish during baking.

The step that matters

Drying the birds from the gravy. Removing the crust and butter and drying the birds keeps excess fat and liquid from sitting on the meat, so the potted birds keep better and set cleanly under the clarified butter.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, nutmeg, butter, port wine, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, nutmeg, butter, port wine, flour. 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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