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Compote of Partridges the Dutch Way

A Dutch-style compote of partridges simmered in butter, herbs, and game consommé, finished with yolks, mushrooms, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Compote of Partridges the Dutch Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. Truss the partridges like boiled fowls.

  2. In a stewpan, melt the butter and add the onion, faggot, mushroom trimmings, green onions, bacon, peppercorns, and mace.

  3. Sweat the mixture for a few minutes.

  4. Add the flour and toss until well mixed with the butter.

  5. Dilute with enough white consomme to cover the birds and let simmer for 20-30 minutes.

  6. Skim the sauce, remove the birds, and drain them.

Cook the birds

  1. Remove the strings from the birds.

  2. Place the birds in another stewpan with the trimmed bacon and strain the sauce over them.

  3. Keep the birds hot.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, bring the sauce to a boil and stir in the egg yolks, quenelles, mushrooms, button onions, and chopped parsley.

  2. Finish the sauce with salt, lemon juice, and a small piece of butter.

  3. Serve the birds with fried bread combs between them.

  4. Mask the birds with sauce.

  5. Glaze the bread.

  6. Place the ragout in the center.

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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Mushroom + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,571 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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 is gently simmered so it stays tender in the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the aromatics as they sweat before the sauce is built.
Flour
Thickens the consomme into a smooth sauce that clings to the birds.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a silky body when stirred in off the boil.
White consomme of game
Forms the liquid base that simmers the birds and becomes the sauce.
Bacon
Adds savoury, smoky flavour to the sauce and the birds during cooking.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the sauce boils after they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy, so the sauce should be brought to a boil before they are stirred in and kept below boiling.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, clove, mushroom, olive, flour, egg):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, clove, mushroom, olive, flour, egg. 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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