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To Pot Partridges

A dish of partridges seasoned with mace, allspice, white pepper, and coarse sea salt, baked with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and allspice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,189 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

To Pot Partridges

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clean the partridges thoroughly.

  2. Season them with mace, allspice, white pepper, and coarse sea salt. Rub the seasoning into every part of the birds.

Bake

  1. Lay the breasts down in a pan and pack the birds tightly.

  2. Cover the birds with a generous amount of butter.

  3. Cover the pan with a flour paste and a paper, tying it tightly.

  4. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until cooked.

Pot and serve

  1. Once cooled, place the birds in pots and cover with butter.

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. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Allspice + white peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together272 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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, which becomes tender through slow, enclosed baking.
Butter
Covers the birds to add richness and moisture while they cook and set in the pots.
Flour
Forms a paste that seals the pan so the birds steam gently in their own juices.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and helps draw flavor into the birds during rubbing.

The step that matters

Sealing the pan with the flour paste. If the flour paste and paper do not seal tightly, steam and juices escape and the birds dry out during the long, low bake.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mace, allspice, butter, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mace, allspice, butter, flour. 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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