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Blackcock, Salmi of

A stew of blackcock pieces cooked in brown stock and port wine, thickened with arrowroot and finished with lemon juice, salt, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Blackcock, Salmi of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stew

  1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

  2. Add the blackcock pieces and cook for 4-5 minutes until browned.

  3. Drain off the butter, then pour in the brown stock and port wine.

  4. Stew the bird gently for 1 hour.

  5. Remove the pieces and keep them warm.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Mix the arrowroot with cold water, then stir it into the sauce.

  2. Simmer for 2-3 minutes until thickened.

  3. Add lemon juice, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Strain the sauce over the blackcock and serve immediately.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Arrowroot + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Arrowroot + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together329 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Blackcock
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through gentle, long stewing.
Butter
Browns the bird's pieces and adds richness to the start of the dish.
Brown stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries savoury flavour through the stew.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the sauce as it reduces with the stock.
Arrowroot
Thickens the sauce to a glossy, lightly set consistency when simmered.

The step that matters

Mix the arrowroot with cold water, then stir it into the sauce.. Arrowroot must be fully dispersed in cold water first, or it clumps. It then thickens the sauce when simmered and held near the boil, so the sauce should be simmered briefly until it thickens.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, port wine, lemon, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, port wine, lemon, pepper. 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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