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Salmi of Grouse

A stew of grouse simmered in stock with onions, carrots, celery, parsley, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Salmi of Grouse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grouse

  1. Cut the grouse into joints and divide the breasts into two pieces each.

Make the stew

  1. In a saucepan, combine the stock, onion, carrot, celery, and parsley. Season well and cook slowly for one hour.

  2. Rub the mixture through a colander.

  3. Stir in the brown roux and bring to a boil.

  4. Add the grouse to the saucepan, ensuring it does not boil. Place the grouse in a saucepan of boiling water to keep at the scalding point for 30 minutes.

  5. At the end, add the mushrooms and serve.

Make the giblet toast

  1. If using giblets, mince them finely, mix with butter, and season with salt and pepper. Spread on buttered toast 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grouse
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender as it gently simmers in the stock.
Brown roux
Thickens the stew, giving it body as the flour and fat cook together.
Stock or consommé
Forms the liquid base of the stew and carries its flavour.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture, cooked gently in their own liquor.

The step that matters

Keep the grouse below a boil. Boiling toughens meat proteins and makes them dry and stringy, so the grouse should only be held just below boiling, at a gentle scald.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, parsley, mushroom, butter, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, parsley, mushroom, butter, 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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