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Partridges in a Salmis or Hash

Roasted partridges served in a sauce of ham, onion, parsley, peppercorns, garlic, Sherry, consomme, and plain sauce, finished with lemon, egg yolk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Partridges in a Salmis or Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the partridges

  1. Cut the wings, legs, and breast off the roasted partridges neatly.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine the partridge back bone, ham, onion, parsley, peppercorns, garlic, Sherry, consomme, and plain sauce.

  2. Boil over gentle heat until thickened.

  3. Strain the mixture into the stewpan with the legs and wings.

  4. Heat the mixture until very hot, then add lemon juice, egg yolk, and cream.

Finish and serve

  1. Shake well, lay the partridges on a dish, and serve.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce gently as it heats and gives it a richer body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, rounder texture to the finished sauce.
Consomme
Supplies the liquid base and savory meat flavor of the sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Brightens the sauce with acidity and balances the richness of the cream and yolk.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream. Once the sauce is very hot, the egg yolk can scramble and curdle if it boils. Adding it off the heat or at a gentle temperature, and whisking well, keeps the sauce smooth and lightly thickened.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, onion, parsley, clove, garlic, sherry, sauce):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, parsley, clove, garlic, sherry, 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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