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Roast Partridges

Roasted partridges served with a gravy made from their remains, water or broth, and optional mushrooms, shallot, or herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Roast Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Remove the crop from the partridges through a slit in the back of the neck.

  2. Clip the claws close and hold the legs in boiling water for 1 minute to make skinning easier.

Roast and make gravy

  1. Roast the partridges for 30 to 40 minutes, adjusting time for desired doneness.

  2. In a pot, bruise the remains of a cold roasted partridge and boil with water or broth to make gravy.

  3. Season the gravy with salt and cayenne, and add mushrooms, shallot, or herbs if desired.

Serve

  1. Serve the partridges with the gravy and bread sauce.

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. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

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 cooks through in the oven to a chosen doneness.
Water or unflavored broth
Forms the liquid that extracts flavor from the bruised bird to make the gravy.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and savory depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Roast the partridges for 30 to 40 minutes. Small birds dry out quickly, and the window between underdone and dry is narrow. Checking doneness early helps keep the meat moist while still cooked through.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, mushroom):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mushroom. 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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