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To Pot Partridge

Partridges seasoned with mace, allspice, white pepper, and salt, then baked in a pan with butter and flour paste.

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 Partridge

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Season the partridges with mace, allspice, white pepper, and salt, rubbing it into every part.

  2. Lay the partridges breast down in a pan, packing them closely together.

  3. Dot the birds with butter.

Bake and store

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

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) until cooked through.

  3. Once cooled, transfer the birds to pots and cover them with melted 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

Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and seals the birds when melted over them.
Flour
Forms a sealed paste that traps steam and moisture inside the pan during baking.
Partridges
The main protein, cooked gently in a covered pan so the meat stays moist.

The step that matters

Cover the pan tightly with the flour paste. A airtight seal keeps steam and juices inside during the long, low bake. A gap lets moisture escape, so the birds dry out before they are cooked through.

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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