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Partridges

A dish of partridges roasted or stewed with mushrooms, butter, mace, cayenne, arrowroot, and a sauce of catsup, wine, or store sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Partridges

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.

Roast

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Truss the partridges securely and sew them up.

  3. Roast the partridges on a vertical jack with the heads downwards, or tie them to a spit.

  4. Roast for 30 to 40 minutes or until cooked through.

Stew

  1. For stewing, flour the partridges and brown them lightly in butter.

  2. Cover with rich brown gravy and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Turn the partridges and add mushrooms to the gravy, simmer for another 30 minutes.

Sauce and serve

  1. Alternatively, serve with a sauce thickened with butter, arrowroot, cayenne, and catsup or wine.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  3. Mushroom + arrowroottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + macetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,529 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

Partridges
Serve as the main protein, cooked through by roasting or slow stewing.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the stewing gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and helps flour-dusted partridges brown lightly.
Arrowroot
Thickens the sauce into a glossy, smooth consistency.

The step that matters

Roast until cooked through. Lean game birds dry out quickly when overcooked, so checking doneness at the end of the roasting time keeps the meat juicy while ensuring it is safely cooked through.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, arrowroot, wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, arrowroot, wine. 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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