Skip to main content
Main

Prairie Chickens, Partridges, and Quails

A dish of prairie chickens, partridges, or quails that are washed, stuffed, steamed, baked, and served with parsley and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Prairie Chickens, Partridges, and Quails

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the birds using a little soda in the washing water.

  2. Rinse the birds.

  3. Dry the birds.

  4. Fill the birds with dressing.

  5. Sew the birds up.

  6. Bind the legs and wings with cords.

Cook

  1. Place the birds in a steamer over hot water.

  2. Cook the birds until just done.

  3. Transfer the birds to a pan with a little butter.

  4. Place the pan in the oven.

  5. Baste the birds frequently with melted butter until they are nicely browned, about 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the birds on a platter with sprigs of parsley and currant jelly.

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. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

  3. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + curranttop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together308 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

Prairie chickens, partridges, or quails
Provide the main meat, which is lean and dries out quickly if overcooked.
Dressing
Fills the cavity and adds moisture and flavour to the birds as they cook.
Butter
Carries heat and moisture over the surface, promoting even browning.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the rich, gamey meat.

The step that matters

Cook the birds until just done. Small game birds are lean, so overcooking squeezes out moisture and leaves the meat dry and tough. Stopping at just done keeps it tender and juicy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, parsley):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, parsley. 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

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipes