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Salmi of Duck

Salmi of Duck is a duck soup made by simmering duck carcass, stuffing, and aromatics, then thickening with browned flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Salmi of Duck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold duck meat into neat slices, leaving the joints of the legs and wings whole.

  2. Remove the skin from the duck and break the carcass into pieces.

Make the gravy

  1. In a saucepan, combine the carcass, stuffing, fried onion, sweet herbs, pepper, salt, allspice, and cover with cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for one hour.

  3. Cool the mixture to allow the fat to rise, then skim off the fat.

  4. Strain the gravy back into the saucepan, boil again, and skim once more.

  5. Stir in the browned flour mixed with cold water and add the butter.

  6. Simmer for five more minutes, then add the duck meat.

Heat and serve

  1. Remove from direct heat and place the saucepan in a pot of boiling water for ten minutes to heat the meat without boiling.

  2. Using a perforated spoon, remove the meat and arrange it on a dish, pouring the gravy over it.

  3. Garnish with fried triangles of stale bread 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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cold duck meat
Forms the main body of the dish and is gently reheated in the gravy.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy finish to the gravy.
Duck carcass
Releases gelatin and savoury flavour into the stock during the long simmer.
Fried onion
Adds savoury sweetness and depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Heating the meat in the water bath. Boiling the duck meat in the gravy would toughen it and make it dry and stringy. Keeping the saucepan off direct heat and in boiling water warms the meat gently through.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, onion, pepper, flour, butter, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, pepper, flour, butter, bread. 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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