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Pate-chaud of Young Partridges, a LA Chasseur

A hot pâté made from young partridges cooked with clarified butter, Madeira, truffles, mushrooms, and brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Truffle and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pate-chaud of Young Partridges, a LA Chasseur

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the partridges

  1. Draw and singe the partridges.

  2. Cut them into small joints: remove legs and wings, cut fillets with pinion-bone, and leave the breast and back intact.

  3. Trim the joints neatly, rolling the skin of the thighs under for appearance.

Make the sauce and cook

  1. In a deep sauté pan, heat clarified butter.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Fry the joints until brown over a brisk fire.

  4. Add Madeira or sherry, glaze, truffles, and mushrooms.

  5. Cover with a lid containing live embers.

  6. Simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  7. Remove the lid.

  8. Add enough brown Italian sauce for the entrée.

  9. Boil together for 3 minutes.

  10. Add lemon juice and parsley.

  11. Toss the mixture with the partridges.

Finish and serve

  1. Garnish the pie.

  2. Reserve truffles and mushrooms for the top before serving.

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. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + walnuttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

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

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

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Young partridges
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful when braised in the pan.
Clarified butter
Fat that browns the partridge joints and carries seasoning through the frying.
Truffles
Add a deep, earthy aroma that perfumes the sauce and the dish.
Button mushrooms
Add savoury body and absorb the sauce, adding texture to the mixture.
Madeira or sherry
Adds sweetness and acidity, deglazing the pan and building a richer sauce.
Brown italian sauce
Supplies a thick, savoury base that coats the joints and binds the dish.

The step that matters

Fry the joints until brown over a brisk fire. Browning the meat creates flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale joints give a flat, grey-tasting sauce, so colour them well before adding liquid.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, nutmeg, sherry, truffle, scallop, mushroom):

  1. Walnutthe original
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Almondfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg, sherry, truffle, scallop, 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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