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Salmi of Wild-duck

A stew of wild duck cooked with claret, shallots, bouquet garni, onion, salt, cayenne, Espagnole sauce, lemon juice, and croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓

Salmi of Wild-duck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Pick, draw, and roast the wild duck for 15 minutes.

  2. When cold, cut the duck into small joints and remove the skin.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine the trimmings and bones with claret, shallots, bouquet garni, onion, salt, and cayenne.

  2. Boil this mixture down to half its quantity.

  3. Add the Espagnole sauce and reduce to a nice consistency.

  4. Pass the sauce through a tammy over the duck pieces.

Finish and serve

  1. Warm the salmi without boiling, then squeeze in the lemon juice and toss the contents.

  2. Dish up the duck pieces, pour the sauce over, garnish with croutons, 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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Shallot + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Wild duck
Provides the main meat, which is roasted first and then cut into joints for the stew.
Espagnole sauce
Forms the thick, rich body of the sauce that coats the duck pieces.
Claret
Adds acidity and depth of flavour as it reduces with the trimmings and bones.
Lemon juice
Adds brightness and acidity that balances the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Warming the salmi without boiling. Boiling after the lemon juice is added can make the sauce separate or turn bitter and dull, and it can toughen the duck meat. Gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth and the meat tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, clove, pepper, sauce, lemon, butter):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Kalefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, clove, pepper, sauce, lemon, butter. 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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