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Salmi of Snipe

A stew of snipe cooked with stock, butter, parsley, and spices, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salmi of Snipe

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Season the snipe with salt and pepper.

  2. Heat the olive oil in a pan and fry the snipe until browned.

  3. Add the browned flour and stock to the pan.

  4. Cook for about 30 minutes.

  5. Stir in the parsley and butter before serving.

  6. Serve the dish on toast.

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

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

  2. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Snipe
Forms the main protein of the stew, providing the dish's core substance and flavour.
Browned flour
Thickens the stock into a richer sauce and adds a toasted, nutty depth.
Butter
Adds fat and a silky texture to the finished sauce.
Olive oil
Carries heat for frying the snipe, helping it brown.

The step that matters

Frying the snipe until browned. Browning creates flavour through the Maillard reaction. If the birds are crowded or the pan is too cool, they steam and turn grey, losing that depth before the stew is made.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, flour, olive. 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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