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Partridges a LA Braise

A braised partridge dish with bacon, beef, veal, carrot, onion, herbs, and a rich gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and liver match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 392 recipes. Both carry enoic acid, which smells butter, cheesy. The science ↓

Partridges a LA Braise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Truss the legs into the bodies of the partridges.

  2. Lard and season with beaten mace, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

Braise

  1. Layer bacon, beef, veal, carrot, onion, sweet herbs, and whole pepper in a stew pan.

  2. Place the partridges breast down, cover with beef, veal, and chopped parsley.

  3. Cover and stew for 8-10 minutes over low heat.

  4. Shake the pan and add boiling water.

  5. Cover and stew for 30 minutes over medium heat.

  6. Remove the partridges and keep them warm.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add thin gravy to the pan, boil until reduced by half.

  2. Strain and skim off fat.

  3. Stew sweetbread, truffles, morels, cocks' combs, and fowls' livers in gravy for 30 minutes.

  4. Add the other gravy.

  5. Heat the partridges in the mixture.

  6. Serve the partridges hot with sauce poured over.

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. Veal + livertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + artichoketop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together226 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
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow, moist braising.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that seasons the braising liquid as it melts.
Thin gravy
Forms the base of the sauce, concentrated by reduction for body and depth of flavour.
Veal sweetbread
Contributes a soft, delicate texture to the finished sauce and garnish mixture.
Fowls' livers
Add richness and a creamy, savoury texture when stewed in the gravy.
Truffles
Add a concentrated, earthy aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the gravy by half. Boiling concentrates flavour and thickens the liquid; if it is under-reduced the sauce will be thin and bland, and if over-boiled it can become too salty or sticky.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, carrot, pepper, truffle, liver, artichoke):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, carrot, pepper, truffle, liver, artichoke. 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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