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To Stew Partridges

A stew of partridges stuffed with bacon, breadcrumbs, milk, herbs, and mushrooms, simmered in stock and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Stew Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Truss the partridges as you would for boiling.

  2. Pound the livers with double the amount of fat bacon and bread crumbs boiled in milk.

  3. Add chopped parsley, thyme, shallots, mushrooms, pepper, salt, grated lemon peel, and mace.

  4. Stuff the mixture into the birds and tie them at both ends.

Stew

  1. Line a stew pan with slices of bacon and place the birds inside.

  2. Add stock, white wine, onions, sweet herbs, and blades of mace.

  3. Stew gently until the birds are tender.

Finish the sauce

  1. Remove the birds, strain the sauce, and thicken it with flour and butter.

  2. Heat the sauce and pour it over the partridges.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 becomes tender through long gentle stewing.
Bread crumbs
Bind the stuffing and absorb moisture so it holds together inside the birds.
Flour
Thickens the strained stock into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter.
Butter
Enriches the thickened sauce and adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the stuffing and lines the pan under the birds.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the birds are tender. High heat or a rolling boil toughens meat proteins and can break the birds apart. Gentle, steady simmering lets connective tissue soften slowly while the meat stays juicy.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, parsley, thyme, mushroom, pepper, lemon):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits less well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, parsley, thyme, mushroom, pepper, lemon. 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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