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Partridges or Pheasants Aux Olives

A dish of partridges or pheasants braised in broth and served with stewed French olive sauce and garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,665 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Partridges or Pheasants Aux Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Bone and force the birds.

  2. Braise them in a small quantity of broth.

Finish and serve

  1. Glaze the breasts lightly before serving.

  2. Serve with stewed French olive sauce mixed with the essence of the birds and a small quantity of garlic.

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. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Pheasant + garlictop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  3. Pheasant + saucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  4. Pheasant + olivetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Olive + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges or pheasants
Provides the lean meat that becomes tender and succulent during gentle braising.
Broth
Keeps the birds moist while braising and adds savoury flavour to the meat.
French olive sauce
Adds a savoury, briny flavour and a thick, rich body to the finished dish.
Garlic
Adds aromatic depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Braise in a small quantity of broth. Braising with only a little liquid cooks the lean game gently in moist heat, so the meat becomes tender. Overcooking or too much heat dries out the lean meat and toughens the proteins.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, olive, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicthe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, olive, 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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