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Pate-chaud of Young Partridges, a LA Chasseur

A savory partridge dish simmered with 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, then cut them into small joints: remove legs and wings, cut fillets with pinion-bone, and leave breast and back intact.

  2. Trim all pieces neatly, rolling the skin of the thighs under for appearance.

Braise

  1. In a deep sauté pan, heat clarified butter, season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg, then fry the partridge pieces until brown.

  2. Add Madeira or sherry, glaze, truffles, and mushrooms, cover with a lid containing live embers, and simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  3. Remove the lid, add brown Italian sauce, boil for 3 minutes, then stir in lemon juice and parsley.

Serve

  1. Garnish the pie with the partridges, reserving truffles and mushrooms for the top, pour sauce over, and serve.

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 is browned and then gently braised until tender.
Clarified butter
Browns the partridge pieces evenly and adds rich flavour without milk solids burning.
Madeira or sherry
Adds acidity and sweet, nutty depth to the braising liquid.
Truffles
Add a strong earthy aroma that perfumes the sauce and dish.
Button mushrooms
Soak up the braising sauce and add savoury, meaty body.
Brown italian sauce
Thickens the cooking liquid into a rich, glossy sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the partridge pieces. Frying the pieces until deeply brown in hot clarified butter creates Maillard flavour compounds that give the sauce its depth. Pale pieces produce a flat, weak-tasting dish.

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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