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Partridges, No. 7 Meat

A partridge dish cooked in ghee, cream, almonds, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Partridges, No. 7 Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the partridges

  1. Prick the partridges all over.

  2. Cut the meat into slices.

Make the gravy

  1. Combine the meat, water, sliced onions, minced ginger, pounded coriander seeds, and salt in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer until the meat is tender and separates from the bones.

  3. Strain the gravy into another saucepan.

  4. Heat the gravy in ghee with cloves.

Cook the partridges

  1. Wash the partridges well.

  2. Rub them with chickpea flour, then rinse off.

  3. Rub the partridges with sliced onions.

  4. Wash again.

  5. Sauté the partridges with sliced onions and bruised ginger juice in ghee.

  6. Grind the coriander seeds with a little salt.

  7. Mix the ground coriander with the partridges.

  8. Boil with gravy until tender.

  9. Fry the mixture.

  10. Sprinkle with lemon juice and garlic.

  11. Combine the remaining gravy.

  12. Boil for 15 minutes.

Finish with cream and serve

  1. Grind the almonds with a little rice water.

  2. Mix the ground almonds with cream.

  3. Pour the mixture over the partridges, adding saffron.

  4. Simmer for about 20 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Coriander + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Turmeric + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,197 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Garlic + coriandertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Main meat that becomes tender through long simmering and frying.
Ghee
Fat that carries flavour and browns the meat and spices.
Onions
Sweetness and body that thicken and flavour the gravy.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, thick texture to the sauce.
Blanched almonds
Ground into the sauce to add body and a mild, nutty richness.
Coriander seeds
Provide warm, citrusy aroma that flavours the meat.

The step that matters

Pour the almond cream over the partridges. Cream can split or curdle when added to a boiling liquid. Adding it to a gently simmering sauce and keeping the heat low helps it stay smooth and glossy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ghee, garlic, coriander, cream, almond, turmeric, cinnamon):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ghee, garlic, coriander, cream, almond, turmeric, cinnamon. 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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