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Salmi of Game

A pheasant stew made with stock, sherry, onion, herbs, butter, flour, and fried croutes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Salmi of Game

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pheasant

  1. Divide the pheasant into neat joints, removing all the skin.

Make the stew

  1. Place the joints in a pan with hot stock, sherry, onion, herbs, and seasonings.

  2. Simmer for 30 minutes, then strain the mixture.

  3. Melt the butter in a pan, add the flour, and fry until brown. Stir in the stock and add the pheasant joints.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with fried croutes.

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 + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Sherry + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,237 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 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

Pheasant
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender as it simmers in the stock.
Brown stock
Forms the liquid base that cooks the pheasant and carries the flavour of the stew.
Butter
Fat that is cooked with the flour to form a roux, which thickens the stew.
Flour
Thickens the stew when fried in butter and combined with the stock.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Frying the butter and flour until brown. The roux must be cooked long enough to develop colour and lose its raw starch taste, but not so long that it burns and turns bitter. Stirring steadily prevents lumps and scorching, and adding the stock gradually keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, sherry, onion, clove, butter, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, sherry, onion, clove, butter, flour. 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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