Skip to main content
Sauce

Salmi Sauce

A sauce made with shallots, oil, bay leaf, thyme, bird carcasses, port wine, stock, Espagnole sauce, and red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,476 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Salmi Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a stewpan, heat the salad oil and fry the chopped shallots.

  2. Add the bay leaf, thyme, and mushroom trimmings.

  3. Add the chopped bird carcasses and fry briefly.

  4. Moisten with the port wine, cover, and steam for 5 minutes.

  5. Add the stock, Espagnole sauce, and red currant jelly.

  6. Bring to a boil and cook for at least 10 minutes.

  7. Skim the sauce well and strain through a fine cloth.

  8. Season to taste and serve.

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. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Thyme + red curranttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Shallot + port winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Shallot + red curranttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together49 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Port wine + red curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Shallots
Softened in oil to build a sweet, aromatic base for the sauce.
Carcasses of birds
Frying and simmering release savoury flavour and body into the sauce.
Port wine
Adds acidity and sweetness, and its steaming deepens the sauce's flavour.
Espagnole sauce
Provides the thickened brown sauce base that gives the dish its body.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tang that balances the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Skim the sauce well. Simmering releases fat and impurities that rise to the surface; removing them before straining keeps the sauce clean-tasting and glossy rather than greasy or cloudy.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, thyme, port wine, sauce):

  1. Lemonfits about as well
  2. Red currantthe original
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, thyme, port wine, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCurrant Jelly SauceCurrant Jelly Sauce32 recipesWine Sauce for Sweet PuddingsWine Sauce for Sweet Puddings6 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipes