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Partridges Sautes

A sautéed partridge dish with bacon, ham, truffles, and a béchamel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Partridges Sautes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Cut the legs off the partridges and remove the meat.

  2. Chop the meat with an equal quantity of veal or chicken and pound it in a mortar.

  3. Mix in ⅓ cup panada and a little butter until smooth, then season with salt and nutmeg.

  4. Incorporate the beaten yolks of 2 or 3 eggs and pass the mixture through a fine sieve into a basin.

  5. Add 2 or 3 tablespoons of thick cream and fill a border mold with the mixture.

  6. Stand the mold in a bain‑marie.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, brown the bones and backs of the partridges with bacon, ham, sweet herbs, and peppercorns over a quick fire.

  2. Pour in enough white wine and gravy to make the sauce and boil for 20 minutes.

  3. Reduce ½ cup béchamel sauce with truffle trimmings, strain in the liquor from the bones, and keep hot.

Cook and finish the partridge

  1. Divide each breast of partridge into 3 or 4 pieces and place them in a frying pan with butter, sweet herbs, and peppercorns.

  2. Fry the breasts and fillets of partridge over a quick fire, turning to brown evenly.

  3. When nearly done, add the diced truffles and 1 teacup of Madeira, then move the pan to the side of the fire.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 for both the forcemeat and the sautéed breasts and fillets.
Eggs
Bind the forcemeat so it sets firm when the mold is cooked.
Panada
Adds body and a soft, smooth texture to the forcemeat.
Thick cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the forcemeat tender.
Truffles
Add a deep, earthy aroma to the finished dish.
Madeira
Adds sweetness and depth to the truffle finish in the pan.

The step that matters

Fry the partridge over a quick fire. Lean game meat dries out quickly, so the breasts and fillets should brown hard and fast, then be finished gently to keep them juicy inside.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, egg, cream, ham, white wine, sauce):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, egg, cream, ham, white wine, sauce. 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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