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Broiled Partridge

A partridge prepared by cutting, flattening, coating, and broiling, served with gravy, mushrooms, or lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Broiled Partridge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the partridge down the back.

  2. Break the meat to flatten it.

  3. Remove the feet at the joint.

  4. Skewer the bird as you would a fowl for broiling.

  5. Dry the partridge.

Coat

  1. Coat it with flour.

  2. Coat it with egg.

  3. Sprinkle with chopped herbs.

  4. Sprinkle with seasoned bread crumbs.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil until cooked through.

  2. Serve with a little gravy and chopped mushrooms.

  3. Omit the egg and crumbs.

  4. Rub with butter.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

  6. Serve with lemon juice squeezed over it.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Binds the flour so the herbs and crumbs adhere to the bird.
Flour
Forms a dry base layer that helps the egg coating stick and promotes browning.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust under the broiler.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, moisture and browning on the surface.
Lemon
Its juice adds acidity that brightens the rich meat.

The step that matters

Broil until cooked through. Partridge is a lean, small bird, so it dries out quickly under the broiler, yet it must be fully cooked through for safety. Watch closely and check the thickest parts.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, bread, pepper, butter):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, bread, pepper, butter. 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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