Skip to main content
Main

Partridge Pudding

A steamed pudding made with partridges, veal, stock, shallot, mushrooms, and suet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Partridge Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the basin

  1. Grease and line a 1.5‑pint pudding basin with suet paste.

Fill the pudding

  1. Cut the veal cutlet into pieces.

  2. Stuff each partridge with the veal pieces, season with pepper and salt.

  3. Add chopped shallot and mushrooms to the basin.

  4. Pour in the brown stock.

  5. Cover with remaining pieces of veal, wet the edge of the paste, and place the top crust on.

Boil

  1. Tie it tightly in a cloth and plunge into boiling water.

  2. Boil gently for 2 hours.

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. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

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 gently inside the steamed pudding.
Veal cutlet
Adds meat and moisture that enriches the filling as it cooks.
Brown stock
Supplies liquid that moistens the filling and builds savoury flavour.
Suet paste
Forms a sealed crust that holds steam and keeps the filling moist.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth tightly and keep the water boiling gently. A loose cloth lets water seep in and dilute the filling, while a fierce boil can toughen the meat and break the crust. A tight seal and gentle simmer cook the pudding evenly.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, mushroom):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, mushroom. 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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes