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Partridge Soup

A hearty soup made from partridges, ham, celery, onions, and stock, finished with soy sauce and fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Partridge Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Fry the partridge pieces, ham, celery, and onions in butter until browned, being careful not to burn them.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a stewpan and add the stock, long peppers, bread crumbs, and salt.

Stew and strain

  1. Gently stew for 2 hours, then strain through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the strained soup to the stewpan and add soy sauce, stewed celery, and fried bread.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim the surface, and serve hot in a tureen.

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

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 flavour and body for the soup.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury depth to the stock.
Onions
Browning in butter builds sweetness and savoury colour in the base.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the soup slightly and add body to the broth.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries all the other flavours.

The step that matters

Frying the partridge, ham, celery, and onions. Browning builds savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction, but burnt pieces turn bitter and taint the whole soup, so the fry must stop at golden brown.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, onion, butter, pepper, bread, sauce):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, butter, pepper, bread, sauce. 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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