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Prairie Chickens, Partridges and Quails

A dish of prairie chickens, partridges, or quails roasted with dressing, butter, and served with parsley and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

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 the birds

  1. Clean the birds thoroughly, using 1 teaspoon of baking soda in the washing water.

  2. Rinse and drain the birds.

  3. Fill the birds with dressing and sew them up.

  4. Bind the legs and wings with kitchen twine.

Steam and roast

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

  2. Cook until just done.

  3. Transfer the birds to a pan and add a little butter.

  4. Place the pan in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  5. Baste frequently with melted butter.

  6. Cook until they are nicely browned, about 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on a platter.

  2. Garnish with parsley.

  3. Accompany with 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
The main meat, which is cooked until tender and browned.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture while basting, and helps the birds brown.
Dressing
Stuffing that flavours the birds from inside and adds moisture as they cook.

The step that matters

Cook until just done. Steaming cooks the birds gently, and overcooking dries out lean game meat. Stopping at just done keeps it moist before the final browning in the oven.

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.

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