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Cutlet of Partridge, Fried

Fried cutlets of partridges served with stewed cucumber or vegetable marrow and brown sauce or mushroom puree.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cucumber are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cutlet of Partridge, Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the partridge cutlets by drying them.

  2. Dredge the cutlets in flour, dip in beaten egg, and coat with breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cutlets in boiling lard for eight minutes.

  2. Arrange the fried cutlets on a dish with stewed cucumber or vegetable marrow.

  3. Serve with either Brown Sauce or Puree of Mushroom.

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. Flour + cucumbertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cucumber + saucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + cucumbertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Partridge cutlets
Main protein, cooked through by frying in hot fat.
Flour
Dry coating that helps the egg wash and breadcrumbs adhere to the cutlets.
Egg
Liquid binder that holds the breadcrumbs to the cutlets.
Breadcrumbs
Outer layer that crisps and browns in the hot fat.
Lard
Frying fat that conducts heat and browns the crumb coating.

The step that matters

Drying the cutlets before coating. Surface moisture keeps flour from sticking evenly and turns steam into the fat, which can loosen the breadcrumbs and make the coating soggy and patchy. Patting the cutlets dry first helps the coating stay in place and crisp during frying.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Welsh onionfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, 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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