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Stewed Partridge

A stew of partridges, ham, mushrooms, shallots, herbs, and brown sauce, served with croutons and mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 ↓

Stewed Partridge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the partridges

  1. Partly roast the partridges, then let them cool.

  2. Cut the partridges into neat joints, removing the skin and fat.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, sauté the partridge trimmings, shallots, and ham in butter until softened.

  2. Add the mushrooms, herbs, and thin brown sauce to the pan.

  3. Cook for 20 minutes, then strain the sauce.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew the partridge joints in the sauce for 15 minutes.

  2. Serve garnished with fried croutons and mashed potatoes.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Provide the meat, which is partly roasted and then stewed until tender in the sauce.
Butter
Carries the flavour of the trimmings, shallots and ham and helps them soften and brown lightly.
Thin brown sauce
Forms the liquid base of the stew, giving body and savoury depth to the joints.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury depth to the sauce base.
Shallots
Add mild sweetness and aromatic flavour as they soften in butter.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Strain the sauce before stewing the joints. Straining removes the trimmings, shallots, mushrooms and herbs so the sauce is smooth and clear. Skipping it leaves solids in the sauce that can cloud its texture and make the final dish gritty.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, mushroom, shallot, thyme, sauce, sherry):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, mushroom, shallot, thyme, sauce, sherry. 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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