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Partridges a LA Sierra Ilborena

Partridges a la Sierra Ilborena is a stew of partridges cooked with bacon, onions, peppercorns, vinegar, port wine, stock, and salad oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and port wine work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 598 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Partridges a LA Sierra Ilborena

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Truss the partridges.

Stew

  1. Fry them in salad oil for five minutes with quartered onions, bay leaves, and seasoning.

  2. Add stock, vinegar, and wine.

  3. Cover the stewpan lid firmly and stew slowly for two hours.

Serve

  1. Dish the birds and strain the gravy around 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. Vinegar + port winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Onion + port winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 becomes tender through slow stewing.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and smoky flavour to the stew.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, flavouring the gravy.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the gravy and balances the richness.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, depth and colour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Covering the stewpan and stewing slowly. A tight lid and gentle heat keep the liquid from evaporating and let tough connective tissue in the partridges break down slowly, so the meat stays moist and tender rather than dry or tough.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, port wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, port 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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