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Braised Partridges and Cabbage

Braised partridges cooked with bacon, onions, stock, and cabbage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and cabbage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,001 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Braised Partridges and Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the partridges

  1. Truss the partridges as for boiled chickens.

  2. Brown the partridges slightly over medium heat in a sauté pan.

Braise

  1. Combine the partridges, bacon, onions, and stock in a braising pan.

  2. Braise until three-quarters cooked.

  3. Wash the cabbage thoroughly, then blanch, drain, and dry it.

  4. Add the cabbage to the braising pan.

  5. Finish cooking the partridges together with the cabbage.

Serve

  1. Make a bed of cabbage on a hot dish and place the partridges on top with the bacon pieces around.

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 + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

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 and flavorful through slow braising.
Gammon of bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat that seasons the braising liquid and the cabbage.
Onions
Soften and sweeten during braising, adding aromatic depth to the stock.
Stock
Provides the braising liquid that cooks the birds gently and keeps them moist.
Cabbage
Absorbs the braising juices and adds mild sweetness and body to the dish.

The step that matters

Braise until three-quarters cooked. Old partridges are tough, so they need slow, moist heat to break down connective tissue. Stopping at three-quarters cooked leaves the birds time to finish with the cabbage without drying out or becoming stringy.

“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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