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A Partridge Soup

A soup made with partridge breasts, veal, ham, and vegetables, thickened with cream and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

A Partridge Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Soak the partridge breasts in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Remove fat and skin from the partridge breasts.

  3. Cut meat from the remaining parts of the partridge and pound the cut meat in a mortar.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine veal, ham, pounded meat, bones, white pepper, salt, bread crumbs, onion, carrots, and celery.

  2. Stew the mixture in enough water until flavors are extracted.

  3. Strain the soup through a fine sieve and remove fat from the strained soup.

  4. Add the partridge breasts to the soup and stew the soup with the breasts for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Season the soup with white pepper and pounded mace.

  2. Thicken the soup with cream and flour.

  3. Serve the soup in a tureen.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Breaks down during stewing to build the body and rich flavor of the broth.
Partridge breasts
Supply the main poultry flavor and tender meat that is served in the soup.
Bread crumbs
Help thicken the broth slightly and give body to the pounded meat mixture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture when stirred into the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup so it has more body and coats the spoon.

The step that matters

Remove fat from the strained soup. Fat that is not skimmed off stays on the surface and makes the broth greasy. Skimming before adding the partridge and cream keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, bread, onion, clove, carrot, celery):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, bread, onion, clove, carrot, celery. 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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