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Partridges

Roasted partridges served with mushroom gravy thickened with butter, arrowroot, cayenne, and catsup or wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and roast

  1. Truss the partridges securely and sew them up.

  2. Roast them on a vertical jack with the heads downwards, or tie them firmly to an ordinary spit.

  3. Roast for 30 to 40 minutes, or until cooked through.

Make the stewed version

  1. For a stewed version, flour the partridges and brown them lightly in butter.

  2. Cover with rich brown gravy and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Add mushrooms to the gravy and simmer for another 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with gravy thickened with butter, arrowroot, cayenne, and catsup or wine.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  3. Mushroom + arrowroottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Mushroom + macetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,529 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Lean meat that browns on the outside while roasting and turns savoury as it cooks.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the gravy as they simmer.
Butter
Browns the flour-dusted birds and adds richness to the gravy.
Arrowroot
Thickens the gravy into a glossy, smooth sauce without clouding it.

The step that matters

Roasting until cooked through. Partridge is lean and dries out quickly, so overcooking makes the meat tough. Check that the birds are cooked through at the end of the roasting time rather than relying on the clock alone.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, arrowroot, wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, arrowroot, wine. 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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