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Ballotines of Partridge

A stuffed partridge rolled, boiled, glazed, and served with aspic jelly croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pistachio and nuts match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Ballotines of Partridge

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the birds

  1. Bone the partridges carefully and lay them open.

  2. Dust the insides with salt, pepper, and powdered sweet herbs.

  3. Prepare forcemeat with poultry livers, bacon, shallots, and sweet herbs; season to taste.

  4. Line the inside of the birds with forcemeat, then add strips of cold tongue, pistachio nuts, and truffles.

  5. Roll the birds tightly and bind each in a separate piece of cloth.

Cook and set

  1. Place them in a stewpan, moisten with stock, and boil gently for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain the birds, remove the cloths, and bind them tightly again.

  3. Place them between two dishes with a weight on top and let cool completely.

Glaze and serve

  1. Unbind the birds, trim them neatly, and brush with liquid glaze.

  2. Garnish with croutons of aspic jelly or a circle of chopped jelly 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. Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Shallot + pistachiotop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  4. Liver + truffletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  5. Shallot + truffletop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together352 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Form the main body of the dish, rolled and wrapped around the stuffing.
Forcemeat
Adds moist, rich filling that keeps the rolled birds juicy during gentle cooking.
Poultry livers
Add richness and a soft, smooth texture to the forcemeat filling.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that keeps the forcemeat moist.
Stock
Gently moistens the birds during poaching, keeping the meat tender and flavourful.
Truffles
Contribute a strong, earthy aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Binding the birds tightly after cooking. The birds must be re-bound while still warm so they keep a firm, round shape as they cool. If the cloth is loose, the roll can spread and lose its form, and the cooled slices will not hold together neatly.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, liver, shallot, pistachio, truffle):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, liver, shallot, pistachio, truffle. 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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