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Salmis of Pheasants, a LA Paysanne

A sauce made from shallots, parsley, mushrooms, oil, thyme, bay leaf, cayenne pepper, white wine, glaze, consommé, and lemon juice, served over roasted pheasant.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Salmis of Pheasants, a LA Paysanne

Ingredients

Directions

Roast the pheasants

  1. Roast the pheasants with croutons of toast placed under them just before dinner.

  2. Cut the pheasants into small joints and dish them up immediately.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine shallots, parsley, mushrooms, oil, thyme, bay leaf, and a pinch of Cayenne pepper; fry over moderate heat for 5 minutes.

  2. Add white wine, glaze, and consommé; boil briskly until reduced by half.

  3. Stir in lemon juice and pour the sauce over the pheasant.

Serve

  1. Garnish with croutons of toast around the dish.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasants
Provide the main meat, which is roasted and then cut into joints for serving.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet aromatic base that softens and flavours the sauce as it fries.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savour and body to the sauce as they cook down.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth, and reduces to concentrate the sauce's flavour.
Consommé
Supplies a clear, savoury stock base that reduces into the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds brightness and acidity that balances the rich, reduced sauce.

The step that matters

Boil briskly until reduced by half. A brisk boil evaporates water so the wine and consommé concentrate into a flavourful sauce. Too gentle a simmer leaves it thin and watery.

“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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