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Snipes, Salmi of

A stew of snipes simmered in a sauce of stock, ham, mushrooms, and claret.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Snipes, Salmi of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut the meat from the cold dressed snipes into neat slices.

  2. Bruise the bones and trimmings in a mortar.

  3. In a saucepan, combine the bruised bones, shallots, cloves, ham, carrot, mushrooms, peppercorns, and stock.

  4. Stew the ingredients gently for 1 hour.

  5. Strain the sauce and return it to the saucepan.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the butter rolled in flour and claret or Madeira to the sauce.

  2. Simmer the sauce until it coats the spoon.

Serve

  1. Place the snipe slices in a clean saucepan and strain the sauce over them.

  2. Heat gently by the side of the fire without boiling.

  3. Transfer the meat to a hot dish, pour the sauce over it, and serve very hot.

  4. Garnish with fried sippets.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter rolled in flour
Thickens the sauce so it coats the spoon, and adds richness.
Claret or madeira
Adds acidity and wine flavour that balances the rich stock.
Shallots
Build savoury, aromatic depth as they soften into the stock.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and body to the stewed stock.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the bones and vegetables.

The step that matters

Heat gently without boiling. Boiling a sauce thickened with flour can make it lumpy and break its smooth texture, and it toughens the delicate meat. Keeping the heat low lets the meat warm through while the sauce stays silky.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, clove, ham, mushroom, butter, flour):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, clove, ham, mushroom, butter, flour. 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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