Name: Partridge Pie
Ingredients: 2 partridges, prepared and trussed for boiling; ¼ pound fat bacon; fresh parsley, chopped; a few mushrooms, sliced; rich gravy; orange juice

Why it works: Parsley and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 680 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Partridge Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Pound the livers of the partridges, fat bacon, and parsley in a mortar.
Lay part of this mixture at the bottom of a raised pie crust.

Assemble and bake

Place the partridges in the crust, add the remaining forcemeat and mushrooms.
Top with slices of fat bacon and cover with a lid of crust.
Bake for 2.5 hours.

Finish and serve

Before serving, remove the lid, take out the bacon, and add gravy and orange juice.

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.

Parsley + orangetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together680 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,132 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Mushroom + orangetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together224 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (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 pie as the meat that is cooked through.
Fat bacon: Adds fat and richness, basting the meat as it renders during baking.
Mushrooms: Add moisture and earthy flavour to the filling.
Rich gravy: Adds moisture and savoury depth to the finished pie just before serving.
Orange juice: Adds acidity and a bright, fruity note that balances the rich meat.