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Fillets of Partridges En Attelets

Partridge fillets, chicken livers, and mushrooms marinated in vinegar, water, carrot, onion, parsley, peppercorns, salt, garlic, and bay leaf, then fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fillets of Partridges En Attelets

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Remove the fillets from the partridges and cut them into pieces.

  2. Prepare a mixture of vinegar, water, carrot, onion, parsley, peppercorns, salt, garlic, and bay leaf in a basin.

  3. Add the fillets, chicken livers, and mushrooms to the mixture and let them soak for 8 hours.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat plenty of lard in a pan over high heat.

  2. Fry the partridge fillets first, then the livers, and finally the mushrooms.

  3. Place the fried items on a sheet of paper to drain excess fat.

  4. Arrange them neatly on a serving dish.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 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

Partridge fillets
Form the main protein, which browns and turns tender during frying.
Vinegar
Acidity in the soaking mixture that softens the meat and adds a sharp flavour.
Chicken livers
Add rich, savoury flavour and a soft, creamy texture when fried.
Mushrooms
Absorb the soaking flavours and brown in the hot fat, adding savoury depth.
Lard
Fat for frying that conducts high heat and browns the surface of each piece.

The step that matters

Frying in very hot lard. Lard must be hot enough to brown the pieces quickly. If it is too cool, the fillets absorb fat and turn greasy and pale instead of crisp and golden.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, carrot, onion, parsley, garlic, chicken, liver):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, carrot, onion, parsley, garlic, chicken, liver. 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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