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Partridges in a Salmis, or Hash

A stew of roasted partridges with ham, onion, parsley, peppercorns, garlic, sherry, consommé, and sauce, finished with lemon, egg yolk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Partridges in a Salmis, or Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the partridges

  1. Cut the wings, legs, and breast from the roasted partridges.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine the partridge parts with the back bone, ham, onion, parsley, peppercorns, garlic, sherry, consommé, and plain sauce.

  2. Simmer over gentle heat until thickened.

  3. Strain the mixture into the stewpan with the legs and wings.

  4. Heat the mixture until very hot.

  5. Stir in the lemon juice, egg yolk, and cream. Mix well.

Serve

  1. Arrange the partridges on a serving dish.

  2. 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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce and adds richness when stirred in gently at the end.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, rounder texture to the finished sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and a nutty, aromatic depth to the sauce.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the sauce base.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat. If the mixture is too hot when the yolk goes in, it can scramble and turn grainy, so it should be stirred in off the heat or over very low heat.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, onion, parsley, clove, garlic, sherry, sauce):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, parsley, clove, garlic, sherry, 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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