Skip to main content
Main

Partridges with Truffles

Partridges cooked with truffles, Madeira, and ham, served with a béchamel-based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Truffle and ham work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 516 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Partridges with Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and dice the truffles, then set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine trimmings and béchamel sauce; gradually reduce and add stock, then strain and keep hot.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the partridge breasts and fillets over medium heat, turning until nearly cooked.

  2. Add the diced truffles and Madeira, then finish cooking gently with the lid covered.

  3. Remove any onion and aromatics from the sauce before serving.

  4. On serving, place a poached border on a dish, set the partridges in the center, and pour the sauce over them, adding diced ham.

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. Truffle + hamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together516 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Sauce + hamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Truffle + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,490 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Truffles
Adds a concentrated earthy aroma that perfumes the sauce and the birds.
Béchamel sauce
Gives the sauce body and a creamy, smooth texture when reduced.
Stock from bones
Adds savory depth and liquid that thins and flavors the reduced sauce.
Partridges
Provide the main lean meat, which browns in the pan and stays tender when cooked gently.
Madeira
Adds sweetness and a rich, slightly caramelized aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Finish cooking the partridge gently with the lid covered. Lean game meat dries out quickly under high heat. Gentle covered cooking keeps the breasts and fillets moist while they finish cooking through.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes