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Partridges En Crepine

Stuffed partridges baked with puff pastry, served with a reduced sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Basil and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,768 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Partridges En Crepine

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.

Poach the partridges

  1. Boil and stew the partridges until half cooked with veal broth, white wine, onion, basil, thyme, garlic, pepper, salt, lemon juice, cloves, and bay leaf.

  2. Remove the partridges from the liquid and strain it to make a good sauce.

Stuff and bake

  1. Once cool, stuff each partridge with light forcemeat.

  2. Brush the stuffed partridges with beaten egg whites.

  3. Garnish with puff pastry in your desired shape.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with the reduced sauce underneath.

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. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Basil + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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 becomes tender through slow moist stewing before baking.
Egg whites
Form a glossy, golden coating on the stuffed partridges when brushed on and baked.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the stewing liquid, which flavours the sauce.
Veal broth
Supplies the savoury liquid that cooks the partridges and becomes the base of the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the stewing liquid and sauce.

The step that matters

Remove the partridges before they are fully cooked. The birds are only half cooked at this stage, so they finish in the oven. Cooking them through here would leave the meat dry after baking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, white wine, basil, thyme, clove, garlic, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, white wine, basil, thyme, clove, garlic, pepper. 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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