Why it works: Pheasant and quail share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 48 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Salmis of Game
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the game
Remove the skin from the cold roasted game and discard the head, feet, pinions, and neck.
Cut the game into appropriate sizes: leave smaller birds whole, halve medium-sized birds, and cut larger birds into pieces.
Cook the salmi
Place the game in a stewpan with lemon juice, gravy, wine, salt, spices, shallot, and lemon rind.
Cook quickly for 8 to 10 minutes.
Serve
Arrange the game around the dish with toast sippets.
Pour the sauce into the center.
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.
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Pheasant + quailtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together48 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,523 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Pheasant + shallottop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together89 recipes
Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).
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Quail + shallottop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together38 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
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Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,157 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Wine
- Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich sauce and game flavour.
- Gravy
- Provides body and savoury depth to the sauce around the game.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that balances the richness of the game and sauce.
The step that matters
Cook quickly for 8 to 10 minutes. Cold game is already cooked, so brief heating in the sauce only warms it through. Longer cooking toughens the meat and dries it out, so the pieces should be heated just until hot.
“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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