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Salmis of Turkey

A stew of roast turkey slices, bacon, mushrooms, truffles, herbs, and claret wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 370 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Salmis of Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the bacon slices at the bottom of a stewpan.

  2. Add the chopped mushrooms and truffles.

  3. Layer the turkey slices on top of the mushrooms and truffles.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Add the chopped parsley, chervil, and chives.

Stew and serve

  1. Pour in claret and enough water to cover the ingredients.

  2. Set the stewpan on moderate heat and let it stew well.

  3. Remove the fat from the sauce 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. Chervil + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Provides the main cooked meat that becomes tender as it stews in the liquid.
Bacon
Its fat renders into the stew, adding richness and savoury flavour to the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture that mingles with the stewing liquid.
Truffles
Contribute a concentrated earthy aroma to the stew.
Claret
Supplies acidity and wine flavour that helps build the sauce as it reduces.

The step that matters

Remove the fat from the sauce and serve. Bacon and other fats float to the surface as the stew cooks. Skimming them off keeps the sauce from tasting greasy and gives it a cleaner, more balanced flavour.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, mushroom, truffle, pepper, chervil, chive):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, mushroom, truffle, pepper, chervil, chive. 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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