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Partridge Soup

Partridge Soup is a stew made from partridges, ham, celery, butter, flour, giblet liquor, wine, mushroom catsup, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Partridge Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the partridges and cut them into pieces.

Make the soup

  1. In a stew-pan, melt the butter and stir in enough flour to make a paste.

  2. Gradually add a ladleful of giblet liquor, stirring continuously.

  3. Let it boil for about 10 minutes, stirring to prevent burning.

  4. Skim and strain the mixture into a basin, then wash out the stew-pan.

  5. Return the soup to the stew-pan, season with wine, mushroom catsup, and salt.

  6. Bring to a boil, then add the giblets to heat through.

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

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

  2. Wine + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  3. Celery + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,006 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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 and savoury flavour of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps form the initial paste.
Flour
Mixed with butter to form a paste that thickens the soup.
Giblet liquor
Serves as the savoury liquid base that forms the body of the soup.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the soup's flavour.
Mushroom catsup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami depth to the soup.

The step that matters

Gradually add the giblet liquor while stirring. Adding liquid slowly while stirring continuously lets the flour and butter paste disperse evenly. Dumping in liquid at once tends to form lumps that are hard to smooth out, and the continuous stirring also helps prevent the flour from scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, flour, wine, mushroom):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, flour, wine, mushroom. 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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