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Roast Partridges

Roasted partridges seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter, 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: Pork and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,933 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Roast Partridges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and truss the partridges as you would chickens.

  2. Bind thin slices of fat salt pork or bacon over the breasts.

  3. Place the partridges in a roaster with ½ cup of boiling water.

  4. Season the birds with salt and pepper, then brush with melted butter.

Roast and serve

  1. Cover and cook for 45 minutes, basting four times with butter and water.

  2. Serve with bread sauce and pour several spoonfuls of gravy over the birds.

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. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 as the centerpiece of the meal.
Fat salt pork or bacon
Bastes the lean breast meat with fat, helping keep it moist and adding savory flavor.
Melted butter
Adds fat for browning and richness, and helps the skin turn golden.

The step that matters

Basting during the covered roast. Lean game birds dry out easily. Regular basting with butter and water keeps the surface moist and adds flavor while the covered roast cooks through.

“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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