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Cutlets of Partridges

Partridge cutlets are fillets coated in egg and breadcrumbs, browned and served with a cayenne‑orange sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Cutlets of Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fillets

  1. Remove the fillets from the partridges and trim away the skins and nerves.

  2. Flatten the fillets lightly with the handle of a knife.

  3. Scrape the pinion bones to a point and insert one into each fillet at the pointed end.

Cook and coat

  1. Heat a little butter in a sauté pan and add a pinch of coarse sea salt.

  2. Cook the fillets until just set, then remove from heat.

  3. Let the butter cool slightly, then stir in the egg yolks to thicken.

  4. Dip the cutlets in the egg mixture, then coat with bread crumbs.

  5. Broil the cutlets over a brisk fire until nicely browned on both sides.

Serve

  1. Serve with a sauce made from the carcasses, seasoned with cayenne and orange juice.

  2. Optionally, serve small fillets cut in scallops and sautéed with truffles or mushrooms, or with West India pickle.

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. Pepper + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + truffletop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together531 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the butter mixture and bind the bread crumbs to the cutlets.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the outside of the cutlets.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the fillets while they cook and helps brown the coating.
Partridges
Provide the lean meat that forms the cutlets.

The step that matters

Cook the fillets until just set. Partridge breast is lean and dries out quickly when overcooked. Removing the fillets from heat once just set keeps them moist before the coating and broiling.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, bread, pepper, truffle):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Red currantfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, bread, pepper, truffle. 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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