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Partridge Soup

A hearty soup made with partridges or pheasants, old fowl, veal knuckle, ham, vegetables, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Partridge Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut the partridges or pheasants, old fowl, knuckle of veal, and lean ham into pieces.

  2. Add celery, onions, turnips, carrot, and mace to a stew pot with ½ cup of water.

  3. Cover and steam over low heat until three-quarters cooked.

  4. Add 3 quarts of beef stock and simmer until all ingredients are tender.

  5. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve.

  6. Let the strained liquid cool to remove the fat.

Finish the soup

  1. Add a little liquid coloring, coarse sea salt, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Whisk in 2 eggs and their shells.

  3. Heat gently.

  4. Strain through a tamis cloth.

  5. Cut the cabbage into small slices.

  6. Scald the sliced cabbage.

  7. Add the scalded cabbage to the soup.

  8. Boil gently until the cabbage is tender.

  9. Preserve one of the partridges to serve in the soup.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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 or pheasants
Provide the main meat and rich flavour for the broth.
Eggs
Whisked with their shells, they help clarify the broth as they set.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the soup.
White cabbage
Adds body and a mild vegetable sweetness to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Let the strained liquid cool to remove the fat. Fat rises and sets as the liquid cools, so it can be lifted off cleanly. Skipping this leaves a greasy soup that is hard to clarify.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, veal, ham, celery, onion, turnip, carrot):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, veal, ham, celery, onion, turnip, carrot. 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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