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Roast Partridges

Roasted partridges served with a currant jelly gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Partridges

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.

Prepare the birds

  1. Clean and truss the partridges.

  2. Lard the partridges with thin slices of fat salt pork.

Roast and make the gravy

  1. Roast the partridges in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  2. In a basin, melt the butter until it bubbles.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook until dark brown.

  4. Gradually pour in the boiling water, stirring constantly.

  5. Season the gravy with salt, pepper, and the drippings from the partridges.

  6. Add ½ cup of currant jelly to the gravy before serving.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  4. Currant + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 cooks through in the oven and gives the dish its body.
Fat salt pork
Lardons add fat that keeps the lean game moist as it roasts.
Butter
Fat that is cooked with flour to form the base of the gravy roux.
Dry flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked in butter and then mixed with water.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity acidity that balances the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Cook the flour in butter until dark brown. The roux must cook long enough to develop colour and nutty flavour, but not burn. Stirring constantly prevents scorching, and the roux must be fully mixed before the boiling water goes in so the gravy thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, pork):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, pork. 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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