Name: Partridges, Salmi a LA Chasseur
Ingredients: 4 tablespoons pure salad oil; 6 tablespoons good claret; juice of 1 lemon; grated rind of 1 lemon; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; ¼ teaspoon white pepper

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Partridges, Salmi a LA Chasseur

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut cold roasted partridges into joints and remove skin and sinew.

Make the sauce and serve

In a saucepan, combine salad oil, claret, lemon juice, lemon rind, salt, cayenne, and white pepper.
Heat the mixture gently, then add the partridge joints and cook until heated through.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lemon + white peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,658 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Pepper + white peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,478 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Claret: Adds acidity and wine flavour that balances the richness of the oil.
Lemon juice: Provides sharp acidity that brightens the sauce.
Salad oil: Carries flavour and keeps the sauce moist and glossy.