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Partridges

Roasted partridges served with mushroom sauce or a brown gravy thickened with butter and arrowroot.

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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Remove the gills from the partridges and sew them up securely.

  3. Truss the partridges.

Roast

  1. Roast the trussed partridges on a vertical spit with the heads down for 30 to 40 minutes.

  2. Alternatively, tie them to an ordinary spit and roast as usual.

Stew

  1. For stewing, flour the trussed partridges and brown them lightly in butter.

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

  3. Turn the partridges and add mushrooms to the gravy, simmering for another 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with brown mushroom sauce or simply thicken the sauce with butter and arrowroot, adding 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
Provide the main meat, which cooks through during roasting or slow simmering in gravy.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the gravy as it simmers.
Butter
Browns the floured partridges and adds richness to the sauce.
Arrowroot
Thickens the sauce to a glossy, smooth consistency without clouding it.

The step that matters

Browning the floured partridges in butter. Lightly browning the flour-coated birds creates flavourful browned surfaces through the Maillard reaction, which then carry into the gravy. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the sauce pale and flat.

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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