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To Roast Partridges

Partridges roasted with butter, salt, and cayenne, served with bread sauce and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

To Roast Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Hang the partridges until ready to cook, ensuring they do not spoil.

  2. Carefully pick, draw, and singe the birds.

  3. Wipe the insides thoroughly with a clean cloth.

  4. Truss the partridges with the head under the wing and legs drawn together or crossed.

Roast and serve

  1. Flour the birds when first placed on the fire and baste them generously with butter.

  2. Roast for 30 to 40 minutes, adjusting time for desired doneness.

  3. Serve with bread sauce and good brown gravy poured over them.

  4. For a superior gravy, boil the remains of a cold roasted partridge with enough water or unflavored broth to make gravy for two birds, seasoning with salt and cayenne, and adding mushrooms, shallots, or herbs if desired.

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

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Form the main body of the dish, cooking through over the fire to tender meat.
Butter
Adds moisture and fat, and helps the skin brown as the birds are basted.

The step that matters

Roast for 30 to 40 minutes, adjusting time for desired doneness. Game birds are lean and dry out quickly, so the time must be checked against doneness. Too long in the heat toughens the meat and dries the flesh, while too short leaves it undercooked.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, mushroom, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Shallotthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, mushroom, bread. 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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