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Salmi of Game

A rich sauce made from game trimmings, stock, herbs, and port wine, served over game joints.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salmi of Game

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Fry any bones and trimmings of the game until slightly browned.

  3. Add the carrot and onion, and let them brown.

  4. Stir in the flour and brown everything together until deep golden.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add the stock, herbs, peppercorns, tomato, mushrooms, and Bovril.

  2. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently for 45 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture and return it to the saucepan.

  4. Add the port wine and jelly, then bring to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the game, cut into neat joints, and heat without boiling for 45 minutes.

  2. If the sauce is too thick, add a little more stock.

  3. Serve the joints on a hot dish, pouring the sauce over and around them.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Game
Supplies the main meat flavour, and its bones and trimmings build the savoury base of the sauce.
Butter
Carries flavour and helps the onion, carrot and game brown well.
Stock
Forms the liquid body of the sauce and carries the flavours from the bones.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth, and its acidity rounds out the rich sauce.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a glossy body that thickens the sauce slightly.
Bovril
Adds concentrated savoury, meaty depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Heating the game without boiling. Boiling toughens meat proteins and can make the joints dry and stringy, and it can also cloud the sauce. Holding it just below a boil keeps the meat tender and the sauce smooth.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, carrot, tomato, mushroom, port wine, pepper):

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, carrot, tomato, mushroom, port wine, pepper. 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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