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Salmi of Partridges

Partridges braised in red wine and chicken stock, finished with a flour-thickened sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Salmi of Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and prepare the partridges.

Cook

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter and sauté the chopped onion until translucent.

  2. Add the partridges and brown them on all sides.

  3. Pour in the red wine and chicken stock, then bring to a simmer.

  4. Sprinkle flour over the mixture, stirring to thicken the sauce.

  5. Season with salt and pepper, and cook until the partridges are tender.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with fresh herbs.

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. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,599 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

Partridges
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering in the liquid.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce as it simmers.
Chicken stock
Supplies liquid for simmering and adds savoury body to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the simmering liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the onion soften and brown gently.

The step that matters

Browning the partridges on all sides. Browning creates deep flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale, unbrowned birds give a flat sauce, so they need time and dry surfaces to colour well.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, red wine, chicken, flour, pepper. 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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