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Roast Partridges

Roast partridges with pork, butter, and consommé, served on buttered toast and garnished with watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Roast Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Truss the partridges by passing a wooden skewer through the thighs and another through the wings.

  2. Place a slice of pork over the breast of each partridge.

  3. Put the partridges in a baking pan with butter and boiling water or white wine.

Roast

  1. Baste frequently.

  2. Roast in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 40 minutes.

  3. Remove the strings and skewers.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Place the partridges on buttered toast on a hot dish.

  2. Add consommé or broth to the pan, boil, and strain.

  3. Pour over the birds.

  4. Garnish with watercress.

  5. Serve with a salad.

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 + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

  3. Pork + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,544 recipes

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

  4. Pork + watercresstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. White wine + watercresstop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 gently and stays moist under the pork and butter.
Pork
Lies over the breast and bastes it with its fat, keeping the lean meat moist during roasting.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and promotes gentle browning on the birds.
Consommé or broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savoury depth once reduced in the pan.

The step that matters

Baste frequently. Partridge is lean and dries out quickly in the oven. Regular basting with the pan liquid and butter keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly.

“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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