Skip to main content
Main

Partridges

Roasted partridges served with bread sauce and shallot sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Partridges

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Roast the partridges

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Roast the partridges for about 15 minutes.

  3. Baste the partridges with butter, sprinkle with flour and salt.

  4. Serve the partridges on a dish with plain gravy.

Make the bread sauce

  1. Combine bread crumbs, weak broth, onion, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture for a few minutes.

  3. Beat the mixture with a fork.

  4. Stir in cream, pepper, and salt.

  5. Serve the bread sauce in a boat.

Make the shallot sauce

  1. Sauté chopped shallots in stock and vinegar.

  2. Boil the shallot mixture for a few minutes.

  3. Season the shallot sauce with pepper and salt.

  4. Serve the shallot sauce in a boat.

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 + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
The main meat, roasted until cooked through and served on gravy.
Butter
Basting fat that promotes browning and richness on the roasted birds, and enriches the bread sauce.
Flour
Dusted over the birds to help form a light crust that browns in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the bread sauce, giving it body as they absorb the liquid.
Cream
Adds smoothness and richness to the bread sauce.
Shallots
Provide a mild, sweet onion aroma and flavour to the shallot sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the bread sauce gently after combining. Bread crumbs keep absorbing liquid as they simmer, so the sauce can turn stiff or pasty if it boils too hard or too long. Beating it smooth with a fork helps it hold an even texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, bread, cream, pepper, shallot, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, bread, cream, pepper, shallot, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes