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Pickled Partridges or Pigeons

A pickled bird dish using partridges or pigeons larded with ham or tongue, spiced, and simmered in Madeira wine and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pickled Partridges or Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Bone the birds and lard them with ham or tongue on the inner side.

  2. Rub plenty of spices into the birds and truss them as desired.

  3. Plunge the birds into boiling water for 2-3 minutes, then drain and dry them.

Pickle and store

  1. In a pot, boil equal quantities of Madeira wine and vinegar with pepper, nutmeg, and bruised bay leaves.

  2. Add the birds and simmer for 20 minutes.

  3. Remove the birds.

  4. Boil and skim the pickle for a little longer.

  5. Once everything is cold, place the birds in stone jars and cover securely.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Ham + madeira winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together154 recipes
  4. Ham + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  5. Madeira wine + nutmegtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together265 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 pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and flavorful as it simmers in the pickle.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the pickle, helping preserve the birds and sharpen the flavor.
Ham or tongue
Adds fat and savory flavor to the lean birds as they cook.

The step that matters

Simmering the birds in the pickle. Simmering for only 20 minutes at a steady heat keeps the meat tender. Boiling hard can toughen and break the birds, and the pickle must be fully cold before the birds are sealed in jars so that warm liquid does not spoil them.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, madeira wine, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, madeira wine, vinegar, pepper. 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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