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Salmis De Becasses

A stew of woodcock with parsley, shallots, bay leaf, garlic, peppers, butter, white wine, broth, tomatoes, and a folded omelette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Salmis De Becasses

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the woodcock

  1. Remove the limbs from the woodcocks and place them in a saucepan.

  2. Pound the remaining parts with parsley, shallots, bay leaf, garlic, and whole peppers.

  3. Melt butter in a pan.

  4. Add the minced woodcocks to the pan.

  5. Stew the mixture for 10 minutes.

  6. Add white wine, garnish, and broth to the pan.

  7. Reduce the mixture by half while stirring continuously.

  8. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  9. Add the strained mixture to the woodcock limbs, keeping warm without boiling.

Make the tomato and egg omelette

  1. Slice the tomatoes.

  2. Fry the sliced tomatoes in butter.

  3. Beat the eggs and season them with salt and pepper.

  4. Cook the eggs in a pan with butter, stirring to prevent sticking.

  5. Mix the fried tomatoes into the omelette.

  6. Fold the omelette in half before serving.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Woodcocks
Provide the main meat, which is cooked down into the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the meat and tomatoes cook and brown.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth as it reduces into the sauce.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet onion flavour that builds the base of the stew.
Eggs
Set when cooked to form the body of the omelette.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity to the omelette once fried in butter.

The step that matters

Keeping the strained sauce warm without boiling. Boiling an egg-free sauce that has been reduced and thickened can cause it to break, separate or turn bitter, so gentle heat keeps it smooth.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, shallot, clove, garlic, pepper, butter, white wine):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Kalefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, shallot, clove, garlic, pepper, butter, white wine. 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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