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Fillets of Partridges with Truffles

A dish of partridge fillets simmered in stock with ham, herbs, and truffles, finished with a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fillets of Partridges with Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the partridges

  1. Cut the fillets off the breasts of the partridges, making four fillets from each breast. Trim them to a nice shape.

  2. Lay the fillets in a buttered baking dish, dust with salt, and cover with buttered paper.

  3. Roast the remaining partridges slightly, cut them into small pieces, and place in a saucepan.

Make the sauce

  1. Add ham trimmings, cloves, peppercorns, sweet herbs, shallots, salt, and enough clear stock to cover. Optionally, add claret.

  2. Boil gently for 1.5 to 2 hours.

  3. In a separate pan, melt 2 oz of butter and mix with 2 oz of flour over heat.

  4. Skim and strain the liquid from the birds into the butter and flour mixture, stirring gradually.

  5. Add button mushrooms and truffles, and boil gently until cooked.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the fillets in the oven until just set.

  2. Once the truffles and mushrooms are cooked, remove them from the sauce and place in the center of a serving dish.

  3. Arrange the fillets around the truffles, pour the 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. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Supply the meat for both the fillets and the rich braised sauce base.
Butter
Enriches the flour roux that thickens the sauce and adds richness.
Flour
Combines with butter to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
Truffles
Add an earthy, aromatic flavour to the sauce and finished dish.
Button mushrooms
Add savoury body and earthy flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling the stock gently. Gentle simmering draws flavour from the birds and bones into the liquid while keeping the meat tender; a hard boil toughens proteins and can cloud the stock.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, shallot, ham, flour, mushroom, truffle):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, ham, flour, mushroom, 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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