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Partridges Aux Choux

Partridges aux Choux is a braised partridge dish with cabbage, mushrooms, and sweetbread in a veal broth and Port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Partridges Aux Choux

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Lard the boned partridges with rolled fat bacon, chopped herbs, and pounded spices.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper, then tie slices of fat bacon around the breasts.

  3. Place the partridges in a pot with veal broth, Port wine, and the bones of the birds.

  4. Stew until three-quarters cooked, then remove the birds and bacon from the pot.

Assemble and stew

  1. Line a mold with bacon rubbed with egg yolk, then add stewed mushrooms, stewed cabbage, and a little vinegar.

  2. Place the partridges in the center, topping with slices of sweetbread and a bit of cabbage.

  3. Add water to the stew pot and bring to a boil, then set the mold in the pot.

  4. Let the birds stew for one hour.

Serve

  1. Make a small hole in the top of the mold.

  2. Turn the mold onto a dish.

  3. Strain the cooking liquid over the birds.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Port wine + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Form the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing in liquid.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and moisture, basting the lean birds as they cook.
Veal broth
Provides the moist cooking liquid that gently braises the birds and forms the sauce.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the cooking liquid.
Stewed cabbage
Adds soft, moist body and absorbs flavor from the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stew until three-quarters cooked. The birds finish cooking later in the mold, so stopping early prevents the lean partridge meat from drying out and toughening.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, veal, port wine, mushroom, vinegar, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, veal, port wine, mushroom, vinegar, egg. 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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