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Partridge and Pheasant Soup

A hearty soup made with partridges, pheasants, ham, beef, celery, onions, and bread, simmered and served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Partridge and Pheasant Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Skin the birds and cut them into pieces.

Make the soup

  1. In a large pan, fry the birds, ham, beef, celery, and onions in butter until browned, being careful not to burn them.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a stewpan and add boiling water, peppercorns, and salt.

  3. Stew gently for 2 hours, then strain through a sieve.

  4. Return the strained liquid to the stewpan and add stewed celery and fried bread.

  5. Heat until near boiling, skim off any fat, then pour into a tureen and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Pheasant + beeftop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridge and/or pheasant
Provides the main meaty flavour that gives the broth its character.
Gravy beef
Releases gelatin and savoury flavour into the broth during long, gentle stewing.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury depth that seasons the broth as it stews.
Onions
Browning in butter builds sweet, savoury flavour in the base of the soup.

The step that matters

Frying until browned without burning. Browning the birds, meat, and vegetables in butter builds deep flavour through the Maillard reaction. Burnt pieces turn bitter and can taint the whole broth, so they need steady attention over moderate heat.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, ham, beef, onion, butter, bread):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, ham, beef, onion, butter, bread. 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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