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Partridge Saiad

A salad of roast partridge remains with lettuce, eggs, gherkins, onions, capers, dressed in oil and tarragon vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Partridge Saiad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Place the remains of roast partridge in a deep dish. Add oil, tarragon vinegar, minced shallot, salt, and pepper.

Assemble and serve

  1. At serving time, place the partridge on a serving dish. Surround it with the cut hearts of lettuce.

  2. Garnish with quartered hard boiled eggs, minced gherkins, pickled onions, and capers.

  3. Stir the mixture from the deep dish thoroughly with the garnished partridge.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Tarragon + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tarragon + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Roast partridge
Provides the main protein and meaty body of the salad.
Oil
Carries flavour and gives the dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Shallot
Adds a mild, sharp onion aroma to the dressing.
Hearts of lettuce
Forms the crisp, cool base that the other ingredients rest on.
Hard boiled eggs
Adds soft, creamy texture and richness to the salad.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture from the deep dish thoroughly with the garnished partridge. Oil and vinegar separate unless fully combined, so thorough stirring spreads the dressing evenly. Stirring too little leaves some pieces bland and others greasy or sharp.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tarragon, vinegar, shallot, pepper, lettuce, egg, capers):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, vinegar, shallot, pepper, lettuce, egg, capers. 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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