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Partridge Cutlets

Partridge cutlets are fillets of partridges coated with butter, salt, egg yolks, pepper, and orange juice, then grilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,402 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Partridge Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fillets

  1. Beat the fillets of the partridges lightly with the handle of a knife.

  2. Remove the smallest bones from the wings and scrape them.

  3. Place the scraped bones into the fillets to retain their hold.

Cook the cutlets

  1. Melt butter in a sauté pan.

  2. Add the fillets to the pan, sprinkling with coarse sea salt.

  3. Let the fillets stiffen.

  4. Drain the fillets and allow the butter to cool slightly.

  5. Add 2 egg yolks to the butter to thicken.

  6. Dip the cutlets in the egg yolk mixture.

  7. Grill the cutlets over red cinders until they are nicely colored.

Serve

  1. Serve the cutlets in a crown shape with a clear or reduced sauce made from the carcasses.

  2. Add large pepper to the sauce.

  3. Add the juice of 1-2 oranges to the sauce.

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. Pepper + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + orangetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Egg + orangetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

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

Egg and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,696 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 fillets
Provide the lean meat that forms the cutlets.
Butter
Carries flavor and helps the fillets brown and stay moist during cooking.
Egg yolks
Thicken the butter mixture so the coating clings to the cutlets.
Oranges
Add acidity and brightness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Dipping the cutlets in the egg yolk mixture. If the butter is too hot, the egg yolks can scramble instead of thickening smoothly, so the coating turns grainy and does not cling. Letting the butter cool slightly first keeps the yolks smooth and able to coat the cutlets evenly.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, pepper. 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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