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Soup

Partridge and Pheasant Soup

A hearty soup made with partridge, pheasant, ham, beef, celery, onions, and simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Partridge and Pheasant Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the birds and cut them into pieces.

  2. In a large pot, brown the bird pieces, ham, beef, celery, and onions in butter. Be careful not to burn them.

Make the soup

  1. Transfer the browned mixture to a stewpan.

  2. Add boiling water, peppercorns, and salt.

  3. Stew gently for 2 hours.

  4. Strain the soup through a sieve back into the stewpan.

Finish and serve

  1. Add stewed celery and fried bread.

  2. Heat until near boiling, skim off any fat, and serve hot.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Pheasant + beeftop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Partridge and pheasant
Provide the main meat and rich flavour of the soup.
Gravy beef
Adds body and savoury depth to the broth as it stews.
Onions
Browning in butter builds sweetness and savoury flavour into the soup.
Ham
Adds salty, smoky savour that seasons the broth.

The step that matters

Browning the bird pieces, ham, beef, celery, and onions. Careful browning, without burning, develops rich savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Burnt pieces turn bitter and can spoil the whole soup.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, ham, beef, onion, bread):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Pepperfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, ham, beef, onion, 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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