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Salmis a LA Paysanne

Woodcock sautéed with shallots, parsley, butter, wine, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Salmis a LA Paysanne

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and sauté the shallots and parsley with salt and pepper.

  2. Add the white wine and bring to a simmer.

  3. Stir in the bread crumbs and slices of cold woodcock.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Shallot + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together881 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Woodcock
Provides the main meat, which is gently warmed through in the sauce rather than cooked from raw.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the wine and pan juices, thickening the mixture and giving it body.
Shallots
Soften in butter to add a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the base.
White wine
Adds acidity and lightly deglazes the pan, bringing flavour into the mixture.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness and a rounded, nutty flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the bread crumbs and woodcock after the wine has simmered. Bread crumbs absorb liquid as they sit, so adding them to a simmering mixture and stirring gently gives an even, moist texture without drying or turning the meat tough from overheating.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, pepper, butter, white wine, bread):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, pepper, butter, white wine, 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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