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Salmi of Game

A stew of game pieces simmered with onion, lemon peel, peppercorns, and stock, finished with a butter‑flour gravy and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,150 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Salmi of Game

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gravy

  1. Set aside the best parts of the game.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the smaller pieces and trimmings with the stock, onion, lemon peel, peppercorns, and salt. Simmer for 30 minutes, then strain the gravy.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour.

  2. Add the ketchup, lemon juice, and port wine.

  3. Return the pieces of game to the pan and warm through.

  4. If the gravy is not brown enough, add a little browning.

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. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Clove + port winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Game
Provides the main meat and flavour of the stew.
Butter and flour
Together they form a roux that thickens the gravy.
Port wine
Adds depth, sweetness and aroma to the gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked with the butter so it thickens smoothly without a raw, pasty taste. Adding it to hot liquid gradually, while stirring, prevents lumps.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, clove, butter, flour, port wine, ketchup):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, clove, butter, flour, port wine, ketchup. 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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