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Chaudfroid of Partridges

Roasted partridges served with a cold aspic sauce, truffle, and a cock's comb garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chaudfroid of Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Roast the partridges

  1. Truss the partridges and wrap them in buttered paper.

  2. Fix them on a spit and roast without browning.

  3. Once cooked, let them cool, then remove the skin and cut the meat into pieces.

Assemble the dish

  1. Dip each piece in chaudfroid sauce and arrange in a pyramid on a dish.

  2. Garnish with chopped aspic jelly.

  3. For the border, place minion fillets in a round mold and fill with aspic jelly; let set.

  4. Turn the mold onto a dish and place a block of fried bread crumbs in the center.

  5. Dip the partridge pieces in the sauce again and arrange around the bread.

  6. Garnish with a silver skewer topped with a cock's comb and truffle, then 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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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 is cooked gently and then coated in sauce for presentation.
Aspic jelly
Sets into a clear gel that holds garnishes in place and gives a glossy finish.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the birds and the cooking surface.
Marsala
Adds a sweet, fortified wine flavour to the sauce or stock.

The step that matters

Roast without browning. Cooking the partridges gently without browning keeps the meat pale and tender, so the chaudfroid coating stays smooth and even in colour.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, truffle, pepper, butter, onion):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, truffle, pepper, butter, onion. 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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