Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Partridges

Boiled partridges served with various sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Boiled Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick, clean, and wash the partridges thoroughly.

  2. Cut off the heads and truss them like boiled fowls.

Boil and serve

  1. Drop the partridges into a large pan of boiling water and add a little salt.

  2. Boil for 15 to 18 minutes until ready to serve.

  3. Lift them out, dish them quickly, and serve with your choice of sauces.

  4. For serving, add a slice of fresh butter, a tablespoon of lemon juice, and a sprinkle of cayenne in a hot dish under the birds.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Provide the main lean meat, which cooks gently in simmering water to stay tender.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the warm birds.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavour of the game.

The step that matters

Boil for 15 to 18 minutes until ready to serve. Simmering only until the birds are cooked keeps the lean meat tender; over-boiling toughens the protein and dries it out.

“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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes