Skip to main content
Main

To Boast Partridges

Partridges roasted with butter and flour, served with bread sauce and brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Boast Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Hang the partridges until they are just about to spoil.

  2. Carefully pick, draw, and singe the birds.

  3. Wipe the insides with a clean cloth.

  4. Truss the birds with the head under the wing and legs close together or crossed.

Roast and serve

  1. Flour the birds when first placed on the fire and baste with butter.

  2. Serve with bread sauce and brown gravy poured over them.

Make the gravy

  1. For gravy, boil the remains of a cold roasted partridge with enough water or broth for two birds, seasoning with salt and cayenne, and optionally adding mushrooms, shallots, and herbs.

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

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Partridges
The main protein; its flesh cooks through and browns over the fire.
Butter
Basting fat that carries heat to the surface and promotes golden browning.
Flour
Dusted on the birds at the start, it helps form a browned crust.
Bread sauce
Served alongside to add moisture and a soft, savoury contrast to the lean meat.
Brown gravy
Poured over the birds to add moisture and savoury richness.

The step that matters

Flouring and basting at the start of roasting. Flour and butter applied when the birds first go on the heat help form a browned, flavourful crust. Lean game birds dry out easily, so basting keeps the surface moist while it colours.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipes