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Partridges, Roast

Roasted partridges served with bacon, bread crumbs or buttered toast, watercress garnish, brown gravy, and bread sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Partridges, Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Hang the partridges for at least two weeks in cool weather.

  2. Pluck, singe, and draw the birds, then wipe them inside and out.

  3. Cut off the heads, leaving enough skin on the neck to skewer securely.

  4. Draw the legs close to the breast and truss the birds with needle and string.

Roast

  1. Wrap the birds with bacon before roasting.

  2. Baste the birds liberally with butter while roasting over a clear fire.

  3. A few minutes before removing, flour the birds to help them brown.

Serve

  1. Serve on fried bread crumbs or buttered toast soaked in gravy, garnished with watercress.

  2. Accompany with brown gravy and 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Bread + watercresstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Watercress + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together295 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Provide the lean meat that is the main dish, roasted whole and trussed.
Butter
Bastes the birds during roasting, adding richness and helping the skin brown.
Fat bacon
Wrapped around the birds, it bastes the lean meat with fat as it roasts.
Bread crumbs or buttered toast
Soaks up gravy and serves as a base that the roasted birds rest on.
Flour (in the method)
Dusted on the birds near the end to help the surface brown.

The step that matters

Flouring the birds near the end of roasting. Flour added only in the last few minutes helps form a browned surface. Added too early it can scorch before the meat cooks through.

“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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