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Partridges a LA Braise

A braised partridge dish with bacon, beef, veal, vegetables, and a reduced gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 23 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 partridges

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

  2. Lard the partridges.

  3. Season the partridges with beaten mace, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

Stew

  1. In a stew pan, layer slices of bacon, beef, and veal.

  2. Add a piece of carrot, a small chopped onion, sweet herbs, and whole pepper.

  3. Place the partridges breast down.

  4. Cover the partridges with thin slices of beef and veal.

  5. Sprinkle the partridges with shredded parsley.

  6. Cover the pan.

  7. Stew for 8-10 minutes over low heat.

  8. Shake the pan.

  9. Pour in 1 pint of boiling water.

  10. Cover the pan tightly.

  11. Stew for 30 minutes over medium heat.

Make the sauce

  1. Remove the partridges from the pan.

  2. Keep the partridges warm.

  3. Pour 1 pint of thin gravy into the pan.

  4. Boil the gravy until reduced to half a pint.

  5. Strain the gravy.

  6. Skim off the fat.

  7. Stew veal sweetbread, truffles, morels, cocks’ combs, and fowls’ livers in 1 pint of gravy for 30 minutes.

  8. Add artichoke bottoms, blanched asparagus tops, and mushrooms to the mixture.

  9. Combine the reduced gravy with the stew.

  10. Heat the partridges in the combined mixture.

  11. Serve the partridges hot with the sauce poured over them.

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 meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing in liquid.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and smoky flavour that seasons the braising liquid and meat.
Veal sweetbread
Contributes a delicate, creamy texture to the finished sauce and garnish.
Truffles
Add a rich, earthy aroma that perfumes the gravy.
Fowls’ livers
Add richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Boil the gravy until reduced to half a pint. Reducing concentrates the flavour and thickens the gravy. Boiling too briefly leaves it thin and watery, while over-reducing can make it overly salty.

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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